COMMENTARY Beijing kills Hong Kong's
'buzz' By Lawrence Gray
HONG
KONG - There has been much talk about the core values of
Hong Kong lately. These supposedly are the rule of law,
a free press, freedom of expression, and I would add,
adventure, opportunism, or a lack of much attention to
social distinctions. The last three have always struck
me as being the whole point of Hong Kong, and without
these vitalizing features, or "the buzz", which I think
sums it up, Hong Kong is very dull.
The peaceful
pro-democracy demonstrations by more than 200,000 Hong
Kong residents on Thursday were part of that buzz on the
seventh anniversary of Hong Kong's return to Chinese
sovereignty from Britain. Organizers expected at least
300,000 - less than last year's 500,000 to protest
anti-sedition laws - but still a significant display of
the people's will for full immediate democracy and
universal suffrage. Beijing says "not yet".
In
some respects, last year's July 1 protest march was a
last flourishing of the buzz, and it made people
surprisingly happy for a while. Suddenly it seemed that
Beijing was listening, and because Chief Executive Tung
Chee-hwa dropped the Article 23 legislation (vague,
anti-subversion legislation that would have curtailed
basic liberties), the government was in some respects in
the hands of the people. However, instead of its
foreshadowing a political reform process, Beijing
declared that Hong Kong, a territory of 6.8 million,
would never get the democracy its middle-class
professionals wanted because they were not Chinese
enough, if not outright traitors. They also made it
clear to the tycoons that they needed the economic
support of Beijing, and in return for Beijing
suppressing demands for democracy, they would have to
forego a little bit more of their autonomy.
Kill
the buzz, I suspect the argument among the party
apparatchiks went, and bore the opposition so much that
they will leave or sink into apathy. This tactic might
prove to be the icing on the cake to the divide and rule
tactics of a Communist Party of China (CPC) offering
dialogue to those willing to accept its terms of debate
and hurling threats, abuse and outright violence at
those who stubbornly insist that democracy means
choosing a government by universal suffrage.
Perry Link, editor of The Tiananmen Papers and
professor of East Asian studies at Princeton University,
never mentioned the buzz when addressed the Hong Kong
Foreign Correspondents Club (FCC) recently, but he did
explain the methods the party used to absorb Shanghai,
Tibet, Inner Mongolia and other regions of China and
challenged us to see if the analysis fit Hong Kong.
Mao, he told us, declared that, "The cities
should not be disturbed." Instead, in advance,
communists were to infiltrate the city's institutions.
Then they were to create umbrella organizations often
run by a tough guy and a smooth guy team - could that be
the snappy named Democratic Alliance for The Betterment
of Hong Kong? Then they were to set up study groups and
appeal to patriotism, drawing a distinction between
patriots and other kinds of Chinese, phenomena well
known in Hong Kong.
Foreigners, of course, were
to be induced to leave. In Hong Kong, one assumes this
means tightening visa requirements, removing ex-pat
packages and moving inconveniently placed non-Chinese
government employees to lesser positions so that they
can understand they have reached the end of their
careers.
The process also included psychological
engineering. Examples of good and acceptable behavior
were made, and families were held collectively
responsible for ensuring that their members behaved
accordingly or, as in recent cases in Hong Kong, were
phoned up by mainland relatives and told to vote
accordingly, proving it with the cameras on their mobile
phones.
They also politicized cultural
activities so that the party was associated with
everyday beliefs and activities. I assume Liu Yan Dong,
director of the communist party's United Front
Department introducing the relic of Buddha's finger to
Hong Kong, could be construed as enacting this
particular policy. For some reason, she thought that
gazing upon the Buddha's finger would make you "proud to
be Chinese", but it is perhaps too much to expect a
communist party official to know that the finger, if
authentic, came all the way from India.
When
addressing the FCC, Link outlined what he called the
"Investment Trap". In order to avoid suffering from the
new order, you (business people) are asked not to change
your views but merely participate where you can and
avoid confrontation. Of course, once you start down this
road, having turned a blind eye to one thing for a small
reward, then how can you criticize for another? There
must be many a businessman awaiting his mainland
contract who has gone down that route.
And then
there is a deliberate policy of deception and lies that
essentially tells people that if they stay in their
place, in say, the civil service, the police, the media,
and not rock the boat, they will be rewarded. But of
course the reward never comes and, if I may continue to
try and apply this analysis to Hong Kong, the individual
ends up organizing something like The Harbor Fest, a
massive rock concert that brought bands like The Rolling
Stones to Hong Kong, paid them a fortune, and somehow
did not manage to fill enough seats to recoup the cost.
Mike Rowse, a civil servant and an Englishman who gave
up his British Passport for a Chinese one, looks as
though he will take the blame for that. He is
director-general of investment promotion for the
government of Hong Kong.
Link thinks that, as he
puts it, the takeover of Hong Kong is a "done deal", but
because the communist party is creating a rising middle
class in China, it could bring about democracy for
everyone. However, he says that China's middle class are
currently more interested in blending with the CPC and
producing some kind of oligarchic rule of corporations
and powerful families. This does not augur well for the
rule of law, for free speech, freedom of expression,
social mobility and other Hong Kong values.
Consequently, Hong Kong people can only protect
themselves by defining what kind of China they want and
by going into China to educate the new middle class
about the benefits of the Hong Kong way. Link sees a
need for the political parties here to team up with
like-minded organizations on the mainland and break the
monopoly of communist party rule. He does not say it
will be easy, but he does say it is possible because the
party needs law-and-order to rule, and if people demand
that it enforce the law, then gradually it will be
unable to place itself above it.
Link told the
FCC that the CPC thought democracy was merely a safety
valve for diffusing social tensions, but it did little
to change the ruling classes. So elections are allowable
only when the results are not threatening to the rule of
the communist party, hence the use of village elections.
So, it seems that even within Link's analysis there is
perhaps a chance for Hong Kong to achieve local
democracy. For what my opinion is worth, the CPC seems
to be in robust health and China seems very big, very
complicated, and Hong Kong's politicians much more
concerned about dubious harbor reclamation projects than
spreading the democratic gospel on the mainland. But
things change, and by the end of this year, after the
Legislative Council elections and the expected victory
of the Democrat Party, the political opportunities in
Hong Kong will become a lot clearer.
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