page_title: Conservatism in Hong Kong
section_title: Traditional conservatism
hierarchical_section_title: Conservatism in Hong Kong / Early colonial period / Traditional conservatism
context_page_description: Conservatism has deep roots in Hong Kong politics and society. As a political trend, it is often reflected in but not limited to the current pro-Beijing camp, one of the two major political forces in Hong Kong, as opposed to liberalism, a dominant feature of the pro-democracy camp. It has also become a political view taken by some localist political parties.
  Political conservatism in Hong Kong derived from the Chinese tradition of familism and Confucianism and was incorporated into the colonial government's policies by Governor Cecil Clementi in the 1920s in wake of the rising radicalism and also Bolshevism. The anti-communist sentiments continued after the Second World War when waves of Chinese refugees fled to the colony as the Communist Party of China swept in Mainland China. Conservatives have also taken the libertarian thoughts on economic policies, and have hailed Hong Kong as the freest economy in the world.
context_section_description: Hong Kong as a predominant Chinese society has its own cultural conservatism which could be found in the Confucian teachings. The conservatism of the Chinese elites was further protected under the British colonial rule in the early collaborative colonial regime between the Chinese elites and British colonialists. To facilitate its governance of the colonised, the colonial government helped consolidate the gentry's power to preserve conservative cultural values in the wake of progressive movements about Chinese nationalism such as the May Fourth Movement in 1919 and the subsequent New Culture Movement in the 1920s in China.
  As Marxist and anti-imperialist movements strengthened in China in the 1920s, Hong Kong Chinese elitists sought refuge in traditional Chinese values and teachings and the British colonial government came to the defence of "Chinese traditionalism". During the Canton–Hong Kong strike in 1925–26 which was directed by the Kuomintang government in Canton, Chinese elites, including Legislative Council unofficial members R. H. Kotewall and Shouson Chow, actively advised and helped coordinate counterstrike efforts. Kotewall also addressed Hong Kong Governor Cecil Clementi about the European inspectorate of the vernacular schools and emphasised the need for the colonial government to carefully monitor vernacular education, as the schools had become "breeding grounds for sedition". Clementi directly intervened in the Chinese-language curriculum, stressing Chinese traditional teachings and endorsing "the ethics of Confucianism which is, in China, probably the best antidote to the pernicious doctrines of Bolshevism, and is certainly the most powerful course..." In 1927, the University of Hong Kong established a Chinese department which helped form the Chinese curriculum to be used in Hong Kong schools. The conservative Chinese curriculum was reaffirmed in the 1950s when the colonial government appropriated Chinese traditionalism to counter Communist influences.
caption: Cecil Clementi, Governor of Hong Kong who instilled traditional conservatism in Hong Kong education.
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