This paper investigates the changing contour of Hong Kong's cultural identity. This is an empirical longitudinal study which conceptualises Hong Kong identity as the cultural affect of the local from the national — a spatial distance between ‘us’ and ‘others’. While the citizenship of Hong Kong is a closed issue after China resumed Hong Kong's sovereignty in 1997, the question of cultural identity is open to negotiation. The transition marked the apex of the identification. After 1997, however, Hong Kong people might not have the strong identification with China as appeared during the political transition in the high intensity of media coverage of the re‐nationalisation. Yet, what is evident is that Hong Kong people no longer strongly oppose the Chinese authorities. More importantly, people started to face the reality of appropriating a new dual Hong Kong‐China identity, and hence there is a clear trend of increasing identification with the Hong Kong as well as the Chinese authorities; the legitimacy of the two are more likely perceived to be aligned. Hong Kong people manifested an identity which has become increasingly hybridised between the local and national identity.