Original subtitles

look at eye level

this is me in the middle of crossing one

of the weirdest borders i've ever

crossed

it's this one it divides china from

china and it took me two hours to get

through

this border is weird not only because it

separates the same country into two

but also because it has an expiration

date july

1st 2047. until then

china has promised to stay out to let

hong kong

be highly autonomous hence the border

but the government of china doesn't

really want to wait until 2047.

they're ready to start erasing this

border now making hong

kong a proper part of china and one of

the ways they're doing that

is this huge bridge yeah i know this

isn't really the best shot

so here's a solution

[Music]

the drone doesn't even have a microphone

but even still i couldn't help but say

take a look at this bridge as it was

flying away

but seriously take a look at this bridge

aina has unveiled the world's largest

sea crossing bridge

it's 55 kilometers that's 34 miles

the longest sea crossing in the world

the bridge connects

hong kong with macau and mainland china

i always call this

some sort of umbilical cord between hong

kong and china

that they want something physical for

you to

register in your head that hong kong is

part of china so this bridge

and a bunch of other recent developments

in hong kong are bringing up a lot of

questions

of what is hong kong who does it really

belong to

and what happens when you erase a border

it's june 4th which is the anniversary

of the tiananmen square massacre

there are hundreds of thousands of

people here in tiananmen square

in the history of communist china there

has never been anything

like this on june 4th 1989 pro-democracy

protesters were marching on beijing's

tiananmen square

calling for the end of single-party rule

in china

they were then brutally massacred

hundreds were killed

the troops have been firing

indiscriminately sparking the end of any

sort of

widespread democracy movement in china

they've just turned off all the lights

in this park

[Music]

every year the residents of hong kong

hold a vigil to commemorate the people

killed in that massacre this is

something that's not allowed in mainland

china

but in recent years this vigil has

become more personal to these people

and that's because they are feeling a

new level of influence from

china but wait isn't hong kong already a

part of china

technically yes hong kong belongs to

china

but you sure wouldn't think so by

looking at this border that i'm at right

now

okay i made it into china i mean

technically i was already in china but

now i'm

like really in china

so how did it get like this

britain and china fought a couple of

wars over trade in the 1800s and britain

eventually took over hong kong as a

colony

at the time this was a mainly empty

rocket group of islands

in southern china under british rule

hong kong's population and economy

exploded and even though hong kong's

population was

mainly made up of immigrants from china

it became a very different society than

mainland china which was undergoing a

communist revolution

one of the treaties that china and

britain signed said that hong kong would

be a british colony for

99 years which meant that the agreement

would officially expire in 1997.

as that expiration date drew nearer

china and great britain

started to talk about what this is going

to look like

britain acknowledges that when the lease

runs out in 1997 on most of the

territory

the whole of hong kong will revert to

china

let's finish talking about this stuff up

there

if you go up to the 69th floor in this

building in the chinese border city of

shenzhen

you'll find a life-size wax sculpture of

this moment in the mid-80s

when the leaders from china and great

britain sat around and negotiated the

terms of handing over hong kong to china

and they came to this agreement that

britain would give over hong kong

peacefully to china

under the condition that hong kong would

be able to retain its way of life

legal system their economic system have

freedom of speech

freedom press freedom of association

these are fundamental freedoms freedom

of religious worship

these are fundamental freedoms and they

must continue

china agreed they said they would let

them be independent and govern

themselves for 50 years while they kind

of adjusted to chinese rule

50 years beyond 1997. and so this was

the agreement that they came to

it's called the one country two systems

model and it was kind of unprecedented

okay let's head back to hong kong

see a margaret see a deng

so even after hong kong was handed back

to china in 1997

this border that i'm now biking to stuck

around it remained

exactly how it was and this border

became

highly symbolic of the fact that yes

this is china

but it was kind of its own country at

the same time

governed with its own values and its own

system

that is different than china that is in

opposition to china in some ways

perhaps the most overt symbol of chinese

sovereignty

is this army barracks behind me it's the

chinese army

and so even though these soldiers can't

leave the barracks or do any sort of

enforcement activities within hong kong

they're still here in the central area

of the city

and they serve as a very powerful symbol

of the fact that this is

chinese territory this is chinese

sovereignty but these soldiers won't be

confined for much longer the borders

around their barracks

as well as this border up north are

quickly dissolving

china has committed to respect hong

kong's autonomy until 2047

and for the first decade after the

handover they respected that promise

what you have to understand is that hong

kong was easily

china's most economically productive

city in the early 90s right before the

handover

this one city's economy was more than a

quarter the size

of china's entire economy and so it

makes sense why china would agree

to these terms to keep hong kong happy

and economically free

but then things changed look at the

explosive development of these chinese

cities in recent years

these are china's mega cities these

cities eventually

eclipsed hong kong as the economic

powerhouse of china

shenzhen this town that shares the

border with hong kong is a perfect

example of this

the place went from a small fishing

village of around 30 000 people

to a super productive economic

powerhouse of over 10 million people

in just a few decades

[Music]

hong kong went from making up 27 of

chinese gdp in the early 90s

down to just 3 today and suddenly

hong kong once the economic powerhouse

of china and the gateway to the west

became much less economically relevant

and soon the chinese government didn't

have the same incentives to respect hong

kong's autonomy

so now you begin to see a flood of

chinese influence in this city

let's go see if we can catch the five

o'clock news

in recent years the evening news

broadcast has started with the national

anthem of china

playing under a promo video that shows

hong kongers enthusiastically

participating in traditional chinese

customs

the message is very clear that hong kong

is a part of china whether they like it

or not on top of that

the language of the evening news is

mandarin the official language of china

but in hong kong they don't speak

mandarin they speak cantonese

then they say if you want to kill a city

you kill is language first and we speak

cantonese here there are actually some

professors in

hong kong and china telling us that oh

cantonese is actually not our mother

tongue not hong kong is mother's house

cantonese is actually just a dialect of

chinese a chinese

the chinese government tried to get

teachers to use this textbook to teach

hong kong children the basics about

china

but looking into the book you see that

it's more of an advertisement for

china's style of government than an

introduction to it

the chinese system is the ideal type so

maori multi-party uh rivalry will make

the people suffer

because about all these four points

about how bad the united states

is multi-party systems create government

shutdowns

they're basically pointing to that as

the reason why a multi-party system like

that of the united states

is deeply flawed and really bad for the

people

in 2014 china took it one step too far

the chinese government was trying to

control who could run for hong kong's

election

in an effort to secure a pro-china

candidate this really touched a nerve

for the locals because

this was their democratic process

something that china promised they would

stay out of

so people immediately took to the

streets in protest

starting here in this park

[Applause]

i took the taxi from my home to here on

the

night what was it like down here that

night

we were in a standoffish situation

and suddenly they used um

tear gas the first drop of

tear gas just dropped right in front of

my eyes

we were holding umbrella

trying to prevent pepper sprays

i remember that itchy painful feeling oh

my gosh

i saw hong kong people joining uniting

together against

against the central government and

fighting for their rights

this protest and the subsequent movement

that came up around it

is known as the umbrella movement

you would say oh what's the point of

fighting when you're bombed to lose

they're so big you're so small for the

record

we need to fight we're not taking things

lying down

the protest didn't change the chinese

government's mind

and it didn't immediately change

anything in hong kong but this spectacle

of young people rising up to defend

their rights from the central government

of china

did spark a political awakening among

the many in the city who had never

before paid attention

and i think post umbrella movement was

the first time that the middle class

came out and voted

in droves and voted for the opposition

force but for the first time like

you know people sort of like ourselves

started caring

look at this graph that shows how hong

kongers identify themselves

either as chinese or hong konger in the

early days after the handoff

as china respected the one party two

systems arrangement

you can see how hong kongers slowly

became more and more comfortable

identifying themselves as chinese

but since then with the growing

influence from the chinese government

you can see this line reverse course

residents of hong kong who identify

themselves as chinese

has almost hit a new all-time low the

umbrella movement

is a manifestation of this growing hong

kong identity

and the resistance to chinese government

influence china responded to the

umbrella movement with a new wave of

efforts to exert influence in this city

i'm standing outside the bookstore where

in 2015

five staff members disappeared

throughout the year

this bookstore was selling books that

were banned in china

that basically covered the sex lives and

the corruption scandals of high-ranking

chinese officials

and so one by one throughout 2015 people

who worked in these

in this bookstore disappeared no one

really knows where they went

one of them showed up a bit later on

chinese television

apologizing for what he did and

confessing to his crimes

[Music]

down

back here in victoria park these candle

holders stand as a symbol

of the fight for democracy against

china's single party rule

that was once a fight that happened far

away in beijing

but as this border has slowly been

erased these people now find themselves

engaged in that same fight

resisting a much more powerful china in

the struggle for their own democracy and

identity

[Music]

[Music]

you