Harmonies of National Integration: Cantopop and the Re-Nationalization of Hong Kong Identity in Infinity and Beyond

This paper examines how the Chinese music-entertainment television program Infinity and Beyond mobilizes Cantopop as a tool for re-nationalizing Hong Kong identity. Jointly produced by Mango TV and TVB, the show commemorates Hong Kong's return to China and promotes cultural integration within the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area. Through nostalgic performances, documentary-style narration, and participation of artists from both Hong Kong and mainland China, the program reinterprets the history of Hong Kong popular music within a nationalist framework. The study argues that Cantopop, once marked by hybridity and local identity, is rearticulated as part of Chinese culture, thereby diluting its cosmopolitan and oppositional dimensions. Using critical discourse analysis, the paper reveals how themes such as "homecoming," shared bloodline, national humiliation, and infrastructural connectivity are employed to shape emotional identification with the Chinese nation. Nostalgia becomes a key form of affective governance, transforming personal and collective memories into support for state-led nationalism. Ultimately, the program exemplifies how the Party-state uses popular culture as soft nationalism to reconcile ideological tensions and symbolically integrate Hong Kong into the national imaginary.