Hong Kong and the "hostile foreign forces"

So it seems that the Hong Kong protests may be starting to peter out, without having achieved their goal. This was to be expected; there was no way the government was backing down.

Over the last couple of weeks I have heard various of my foreign friends here in Beijing wonder if the protests were going to end with a repeat of Beijing 1989. This always seemed unlikely to me, as I couldn't imagine the Chinese government sending the army into Hong Kong. Instead, it seems like they may well have chosen the sneakier method of encouraging Hong Kong's triads to attack and harass the demonstrators.

Here in the Mainland, the media has attempted to paint the demonstrators as naive students manipulated by shadowy "外国势力" (foreign forces), which in their imagination are always waiting to pounce on any chance to destabilize China. That they would present it this way is entirely predictable for those who know anything about China. It is also not at all surprising that many Mainland Chinese are ready to be swayed by such accusations.

Allegations of foreign backing are relatively groundless (as this piece by Dave Lindorff intelligently argues). The protesters themselves are genuine Hong Kongers of all ethnic backgrounds, and most of them were not part of any organized movement, but simply turned up spontaneously. The Occupy Central and Scholarism movements are organized, lead and staffed by Hong Kongers. While it is obvious that such a movement would receive sympathy and support in the Western world, there is no real evidence that it was organized or received material support from the outside.

The real mystery is perhaps not whether there are "foreign forces" supporting the protesters, but why this should matter. When the Chinese Communist Party was struggling against the Japanese and the Guomindang in the fourties, were they not receiving the support of "foreign forces"? Or was the Soviet Union not a foreign country? Is receiving international support necessarily a bad thing?

Surely any political movement should be judged on the strength of its goals and its cause, and not on whether it is receiving foreign backing. The Hong Kong protesters demand the right to elect Hong Kong's Chief Executive freely. It is the central government's refusal to allow this that is "destabilizing" Hong Kong. Having a chief executive that doesn't just toe Beijing's line would probably not destabilize Hong Kong, but just improve the level of trust between Hong Kongers and their local leaders. There is no way it could lead to independence for Hong Kong.

Protesters in Hong Kong. The crossed out Chinese word on the placards means "silence" (沉默)

It is interesting to note that Beijing's accusation that Hong Kong's protest movement is basically a pawn of the West ties in with a certain sort of discourse which is gaining much ground internationally. This discourse, which unites the Chinese and Russian governments and their supporters with certain sectors of the Western left, holds that most of the pro-democracy protest movements and rebellions against authoritarian regimes which have erupted around the world in recent years have been initiated and funded by the United States and its allies, in order to destabilize and replace governments unfriendly to them.

According to this line of reasoning the uprisings in Syria and Libya, the Maidan protest movement in Ukraine, the electoral protests in Iran in 2009, the Venezuelan protests against Maduro's government, the unrest in Xinjiang and now the Occupy movement in Hong Kong are all mere tools of the US and the West in their geopolitical struggle against their enemies.

It is of course true that all of the governments targeted by these protests are not on good terms with the United States. It is perfectly reasonable to assume that the US views the protests with sympathy, and even aids them materially in some cases (in the case of Libya, NATO warplanes certainly finished off the protesters' job for them). But to presume that these popular movements are all simple orchestrations of the United States exaggerates the role that this country is able to play and takes away any agency from the protesters themselves, who are reduced to the role of pawns in someone else's game.

The simplistic nature of this analysis is obvious if you look at the "Arab Spring". This wave of popular protest started off targeting dictators friendly to the US and Western interests (Ben Ali in Tunisia and Mubarak in Egypt), and then moved on to countries with regimes long on the list of US enemies (Ghaddafi in Lybia and Assad in Syria). All of these uprisings clearly took inspiration from each other. It would hardly make sense to assume that the rebellions in Syria and Libya were entirely orchestrated by the US, while the ones in Tunisia and Egypt were spontaneous popular uprisings.

Ironically, the way that Russian and Chinese nationalists are always ready to see the hand of the US behind pro-democracy movements around the world reminds me somewhat of how cold war-era conservatives in America and Europe would see the "evil hand" of the Soviet Union behind just struggles everywhere, from blacks fighting apartheid in South Africa to landless peasants fighting for their rights in Latin America. 

Britain's capitulation over Hong Kong's elections

So the British government's Foreign Office has backed down on the row over Hong Kong's elections, saying that it welcomes "the confirmation that China's objective is for the election of Hong Kong's Chief Executive through universal suffrage." 

Calling the proposed system for the election of Hong Kong's Chief Executive in 2017 "universal suffrage" is clearly stretching things. According to Beijing's plan, the people of Hong Kong will only be able to choose between two or three candidates (apparently too many candidates would confuse people. Weren't the Chinese meant to be good at maths?). These candidates will have to be pre-approved by a committee packed with Beijing loyalists, and they will have to be "patriotic". Everyone understands that for the CCP being patriotic means toeing the party line, and that anyone who is basically opposed to them and their goals won't have a chance in hell of being approved as a candidate.

The Foreign Office adds: "While we recognize that there is no perfect model, the important thing is that the people of Hong Kong have a genuine choice and a real stake in the outcome". The truth is that while the people of Hong Kong certainly have a stake in the outcome, it is perfectly clear that they will be offered no real choice whatsoever. 

The British government's new stance is clearly an attempt not to let the issue of democracy in Hong Kong hurt its relations with China. It also represents an abandonment of any serious attempt to exert a pressure on China to respect the terms of the Joint Declaration signed by Zhao Ziyang and Margaret Thatcher in 1984. According to Hong Kong's Basic Law, which was drawn up by the PRC's National People's Congress in 1990 in accordance with that declaration, Hong Kong's chief executive is supposed to be elected by universal suffrage, "in accordance with democratic procedures". It had already been agreed that this would be realized by 2017.

Many in Hong Kong's pro-democracy camp have of course criticized the British government for this capitulation. On the other hand, I cannot really see what else Britain should do. It clearly has no real power to influence China's decisions. What's more, any attempt by Britain or other foreign countries to affect what happens in Hong Kong will only make matters worse. 

China's government draws much of its remaining legitimacy from its supposed protection of the motherland from the evil "foreign powers" forever plotting to keep China down. Most of the Mainland population buys into this narrative to a great extent. If Britain is seen as strongly supporting Hong Kong pro-democracy movement, this will simply allow the Chinese government to tar them as the agents of a foreign power which plundered and divided China in the past. It will also be easy game for them to point out the hypocrisy of Britain acting this way, when Hong Kong never actually had elections under British rule.

Genuine representative democracy for Hong Kong is of course a worthy goal. There is really no reason why a city like Hong Kong shouldn't have free elections (of course Singapore, in many ways Hong Kong's twin city-state, seems to manage fine with its semi-authoritarian system). On the other hand, given how unpopular the CCP and the whole of the Mainland's social system are in Hong Kong, it is very likely that genuine elections would be won by candidates who oppose Beijing's policies. This is probably why Beijing will never willingly allow Hong Kongers to choose their own leaders. 

The CCP will continue to allow Hong Kong to maintain its extremely high degree of autonomy and freedom, as long as the Hong Kongers don't rock the boat. If not, they have already threatened to revoke the territory's autonomy if Hong Kong doesn't "respect" the Mainland's political system.

What it comes down to is that if Hong Kongers want democratic representation, they are going to have to fight for it themselves. On the other hand I doubt that most of the city's inhabitants will want to risk its prosperity and stability for the sake of a protracted fight with Beijing. Unfortunately it may well be that their goal will remain out of reach, until real change comes to the whole of China in one form or another.

Another lesson we can draw from all of this is that the CCP is never going to grant any form of democratic representation to China unless they are put under serious pressure by their own people to do so. If they cannot even bring themselves to allow Hong Kongers to choose their own leaders, after promising that this would happen by 2017, I don't believe that they will ever allow the Mainland Chinese to have a say in who governs them.

Hong Kong

I have just got back from a trip to Hong Kong.

It was the first time I go to the SAR (Special Autonomous Region) of Hong Kong. To get there I took a train from Beijing to Shenzhen, which took 24 hours, and then the subway to Hong Kong. Shenzhen is the big city right on the other side of the border from Hong Kong, which sprung up out of nowhere in the eighties after the government turned the area into a special economic zone. Shenzhen and Hong Kong are so close that the two subway systems are connected, although you have to get off and go through a border checkpoint in the middle. If it weren't for the border, which runs along a river and includes walls and barbed wire to stop people from swimming to the other side, Shenzhen and Hong Kong would probably have merged into a single mega-city by this time.

I was already aware that Hong Kong is completely different from Mainland China in all sorts of ways, so the strong feeling of being in a different country which I received was no surprise. I already knew that the currency and official languages would be different. What really struck me about the center of Hong Kong is how it looks almost exactly like the center of London, in terms of both the buildings and the atmosphere. There are even double-decker buses, as well as certain chains of shops which are only normally found in Britain. The place clearly wasn't a British colony for nothing.

I quite coincidentally arrived in Hong Kong during the weekend of the "rugby seven", a famous rugby tournament between seven nations which is held in Hong Kong once a year. The tournament is also the occasion for the city to have a huge party. It has become traditional for revelers to dress up, turning the occasion into a kind of carnival for the city's expat community and visitors.

In any case, as a result of this, I was almost unable to find a room for my first two days in Hong Kong, and I ended up staying in an infamous building called the "Chungking mansions". The building, situated in the middle of the city, is basically notorious for its collection of very cheap and low quality hostels, with names like "the pay less hostel", and as a focal point for shady businesses and people. The first few floors are taken over by little shops, restaurants and businesses run mainly by Indians and Africans. The whole building is supposed to have about 4000 full time residents. Although it is the sort of place most well to do Hong-Kongers probably won't go near, it has featured in films because of its unique atmosphere. An anthropologist who spent some time studying the place estimated that about 20% of the mobile phones currently sold in Africa pass through the Chungking Mansions, although I have no idea whether this is true.

The atmosphere within the building is certainly unusual. It reminded me a bit of Tel Aviv's old bus station, but seedier and more down-market. Although the mansions are well known for attracting a certain amount of criminal activity, I did not feel unsafe there, since there are people around at pretty much any time of the day and night, as well as security guards. The accommodation within the building is certainly cheap (though not by Mainland standards) and not too comfortable, although the owner of my hostel was as helpful as possible. What was most irritating was the lifts, which are incredibly slow and few in number. I had to wait in a queue for about ten to fifteen minutes every time I wanted to go up to the floor my hostel was on. One of the lifts also got stuck with people inside it while I was waiting in the queue, although technicians were called to unblock it immediately. The building is also a bit of a fire hazard, although standards of safety have apparently improved in recent years. In any case, as soon as the rugby tournament finished I moved to a different hostel in a more decent part of town.

A big distinction between Hong Kong and the rest of China is the level of political activism and protest allowed. Just as I was there a new Chief Executive was elected for the Hong Kong SAR. The election is not open to the entire population, but only to the members of an election committee made up of representatives of different professional categories. Incidentally, universal suffrage never existed under Hong Kong, even under British rule. On the day of the elections a small protest was held in front of the voting venue to complain about the system by which this electoral committee is supposed to represent all the citizens. Some of the protesters attempted to storm the venue and clashed with the police, just like in a good old Western country.

I personally happened to pass by a couple of street pickets held by Falun Gong, the religious cult which is banned in China and directly opposed to the Chinese government. Wandering around the city I also happened to bump into a picket protesting about the Chinese government confiscating land in Shenzhen, and the "Occupy Hong Kong" encampment, obviously modeled on the Occupy Wall Street Movement, located just under the HSBC headquarters. Of course, all of this would be out of the question in the Mainland.

Hong Kong's is also a truly cosmopolitan city, on quite a different level from Beijing. There are Indian and Pakistani communities who have lived in the city for generations and feel just as "Hong-Kongese" as anyone, and large communities of Filipino and Indonesian migrant workers. Walking around the center of Hong Kong on a Sunday afternoon, I came across a park where a few thousand Filipino women were picnicking and chatting. Most of them apparently work as maids, and Sunday is their day off.

Not far off in a square I came across a different spectacle: an African evangelical preacher on a stage, preaching to a crowd of women, again mostly from the Philippines (which is supposed to be a Catholic country, but clearly these evangelicals are making their mark even there). The preacher claimed to be a healer, and while I was watching I witnessed some improbable "miraculous healings". At some point a young woman claiming to be deaf emerged from the crowd, and after the healer touched her and prayed a while, she acted as if she had suddenly regained her hearing. The whole thing was so obviously staged that it is a wonder how anyone falls for such stuff.

Another discovery I made in Hong Kong is that the locals can actually speak Putonghua (Mandarin Chinese), although with heavy Cantonese accents and varying degrees of fluency. On the other hand, contrary to what I had been told, not everyone speaks English, although a lot of Hong-Kongers certainly do speak it extremely fluently. Underneath the international and British flair, Hong Kong is still clearly part of the Chinese world, and the locals still Chinese at heart. This was especially clear to me when I visited the peripheral suburb of Wong Tai Sin to see the temple dedicated to the deity after which the area is named. Although the center of Hong Kong feels more like London than Beijing, when I got off the subway in Wong Tai Sin, I immediately felt like I was in China again. The high rises are even taller than the ones in Beijing, reaching forty floors at my count, and they look almost as run down as well. Foreigners were nowhere in sight, and the local shopping mall felt almost like a typical mall in a Beijing suburb.