The Mobility Politics of Hong Kong's High-Speed Rail

Abstract

Human geography scholarship has revealed how powerful and marginalised actors alike may use (im)mobility to exert authority, and it has recognised the ability of infrastructure to either consolidate or undermine state power. This paper uses new evidence to demonstrate how Hong Kong's express rail link (XRL) to Mainland China was implicated in attempts by both the Chinese state and various social movements to exert control over Hong Kong's territory. Informed by a qualitative content analysis of media reportage, findings revealed themes of ‘rejuvenation’ and ‘integration’ circulated in Chinese state media in support of high-speed rail, while themes of ‘autonomy’ and ‘protest’ circulated in international media to oppose it. Such conspicuous flagship infrastructures like Hong Kong's XRL and the West Kowloon station integrate Hong Kong more closely with Mainland China, while also providing various social movements a large target with practical and symbolic power. The XRL was simultaneously a mode of dominance and resistance for the ways it enabled competing mobilities to assemble to support or resist state objectives. As dominance, the XRL facilitated rejuvenation and integration to entrench the Chinese state's authority over Hong Kong. As resistance, it inadvertently galvanised social movements in Hong Kong who opposed closer ties to Mainland China.