Hong Kong people less likely to consider themselves Chinese

Dec 29, 2011, 9:17 GMT

Hong Kong - A growing number of Hong Kong people consider themselves Hong Kong citizens rather than Chinese, a survey published Thursday has found.

The University of Hong Kong questioned 1,016 people about their ethnic identity asking them to rank how strongly they felt about being a Hong Kong citizen or Chinese on a scale of zero to 10.

The researchers found people felt more strongly about being Hong Kong citizens giving their strength of feelings an average ranking of 8.23 points, the highest score in 10 years.

This compared with an average ranking of 7.01 which was afforded to being a Chinese citizen, the lowest ranking in 12 years.

The poll was carried out between 12 and 20 December by the university's public opinion programme, which has been conducting the same poll regularly since 1997 when Hong Kong reverted to being part of China.

The poll also asked people to make a choice between four given identities. It found 38 per cent said they identified themselves as being as Hong Kong citizens compared to 17 per cent who said they were Chinese citizens.

Around 25 per cent said they preferred to call themselves Chinese Hong Kong citizens, while the remaining 18 per cent identified themselves as Hong Kong Chinese citizens.

Researchers concluded that this meant 63 per cent of the respondents identified themselves as Hong Kong people in the broader sense - that is either Hong Kong or Hong Kong Chinese.

Director of the programme Robert Chung said the findings showed the proportion of people identifying themselves as Hong Kong citizens outnumbered those who felt they were Chinese citizens, both in their narrow and broad senses.

'This is contrary to the China's economic development in recent years, so it must be due to factors beyond economic development,' he said.