Historically, united front work in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) could be traced back to an alliance between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Kuomintang (KMT or Nationalist Party) first in 1922 under the influence of the Communist International and later in 1937 shortly after the 1936 Xian incident.1 In 1939, Mao Zedong regarded united front work as an indispensable element, together with armed struggle and party-building, in the CCP’s revolutionary victory over the KMT.2 During the anti-Japanese war, the CCP’s united front work targeted at the “workers, peasants, small and medium capitalist classes, capitalists from ethnic nationalities, large landlords and the big capitalist class.”3 In August 1940, the CCP adopted a so-called three-three system in governing its controlled areas, where one-third of the administrators came from the CCP, one-third from the “progressive elements” of non-CCP parties and the rest from non-party individuals.4
After the PRC was established on October 1, 1949, the CCP has been utilizing the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) as a tool for conducting united front work on non-Communist and “democratic” political parties.5 In the recent years, the CPPCC has become a platform for “democratic” parties not only to “reflect public opinion” but also to “maintain their loyalty” to the CCP and patriotism.6 With the implementation of the open-door policy in China under the leadership of the late Deng Xiaoping, united front work has, since the mid-1970s, been expanding to the intellectuals, the business people, non-CCP individuals and religious and charity groups.7 In short, the PRC’s united front work has been implementing the concept of the “mass line,” consolidating the CCP on the one hand and unifying the ordinary people on the other.8
In the case of Hong Kong, the CCP decided to “fully utilize Hong Kong’s position” after the founding of the PRC so that China could develop external relations and trade.9 Liao Chengzhi, the former director of the PRC’s Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office, which was set up in August 1978, had told the Hong Kong members of the CPPCC in March 1978 that the PRC government would like to unite those people who “support Hong Kong’s sovereignty return to China” and who “maintain Hong Kong’s prosperity.”10 Liao repeated these remarks in his meeting with the business people from Hong Kong in November 1982, when the Sino-British negotiations over Hong Kong’s future began. His remarks were in conformity with Deng Xiaoping’s idea that the “one country, two systems” in which Hong Kong would maintain its existing lifestyle for 50 years after 1997 would have the ultimate objective of “reunifying the Taiwan comrades.”11 With the emergence of the pro-Taiwan independence movement in the 1990s and 2000s, the former PRC President Jiang Zemin asserted that united front work was the main instrument through which the CCP would reunify Taiwan in the long run.12 The united front work in Hong Kong and Macao has focused on the attraction of “comrades” in the two territories to invest their capital in the mainland, to assist the PRC’s economic modernization and to interact with mainland Chinese for the sake of “developing a centrifugal force among the Chinese and overseas Chinese toward their motherland.”13
Shortly before the United Front Regulation was revised in September 2015, a leading small group on united front work was formed by the CCP and its head was a Politburo member, Sun Chunlan.14 The leading small group’s first meeting was chaired by the CCP Secretary-General Xi Jinping, emphasizing the need for the Party to consolidate the unity among ethnic minorities in mainland China and to implement the principles and policy of united front work. In view of the fact that many young students, intellectuals and democrats in Hong Kong severely opposed the national education policy of the local government in the summer of 2012, PRC authorities responsible for Hong Kong matters began deeply concerned about the lack of political and social unity in the HKSAR.15 The anti-national education movement in the HKSAR was a “precursor” to the Occupy Central Movement from September to December 2014, when more young people of Hong Kong were determined to clamor for a faster pace and broader scope of democratization in the HKSAR.16 The Occupy Central Movement, however, failed to exert pressure on the PRC to yield to the demands of the protestors. In the summer of 2015, a political reform plan prepared by the HKSAR government and supported by Beijing failed to get the support of most members of the Legislative Council. In early 2016, some young people in the HKSAR felt politically frustrated and alienated by not only the lack of democratic progress but also the disappearance of several local publishers who published books critical of the mainland, culminating in a riot in Mongkok where localist protestors confronted the police violently.17
The PRC leaders were shocked by the occurrence of the anti-national education campaign, the Occupy Central Movement and the Mongkok riot, believing that united front work would have to be strengthened in the HKSAR. After the 19th Party Congress was held in Beijing in October 2017, the CCP was determined to expand the “patriotic forces” in Hong Kong and Macao by adopting a new united front strategy.18 First, “a stronger sense of national consciousness” will have to be developed through “an increase in the Hong Kong and Macao people’s collective memory of their national and emotional bonds,” “the refutation of remarks and actions that violate the Basic Law” and “an enhancement of their historical and interactional linkages with the mainlanders.”19 Second, “national education will have to be promoted” through “an identity education of using the Chinese constitution and the Basic Law as the core systems,” “an emphasis on history and national education” and “an integration of the psychological acceptability of Hong Kong and Macao youth.”20 The “refutation of remarks and actions that violate the Basic Law” of Hong Kong has become apparent since the Occupy Central Movement in late 2014, leading to a series of actions, including the November 2014 interpretation of the Basic Law by the Standing Committee of the PRC National People’s Congress over the provocative actions of two legislators-elect in their oath-taking ceremony. The ...