Liberal Hong Kong against Realist China: Misfortunate Present as a Result of the Fortunate Past

Written by Kristina Lozinskaya | Winter 2020 |

Just a month before the start of what came to be known as the largest pro-democracy protest movement to have ever erupted in the troubled state of Hong Kong, Chinese Vice Premier Han Zheng, the man in charge of the island’s affairs, declared that “the political atmosphere in Hong Kong is changing for the better” and that “Hong Kong has set on to the right path of development” (Gan, Chung-yan 2019). Since then, multiple articles have emphasized that Beijing was caught by surprise when in June this year the residents of Hong Kong turned peaceful marches against an unpopular extradition bill into increasingly violent protests calling for “greater democracy” (ibid). Those publications aim to highlight what China “doesn’t get” about the Hong Kong protests. Some suggest that the Chinese government deliberately “pursues a strategy that misunderstands the motives of the protesters” (Su 2019); others speculate that Beijing has misrepresented the social and political climate due to misguided reports resulting from structural flaws in the intelligence channels Beijing has set up in Hong Kong as the “research offices” after the city’s 2003 national security law protests (Gan, Chung-yan 2019). The apotheosis of such “misunderstandings” on the side of Beijing is manifested in a somewhat naive suggestion that the Chinese government should have known better than to interpret the slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, the Revolution of Our Times” as the city’s call for separation from China and its urge to overthrow the current Hong Kong government (Wong 2019). One commentator suggests that for protesters, this motto is nothing more than a plea to “recover the city’s core values,” namely, the rule of law embodied in complete autonomy and social equality (ibid). These principles are solidly ingrained in the Hongkongers’ mindset as a legacy of British colonialism and its law model that for a century and a half has served as the city’s main statute. To assume that Beijing “misunderstands” the liberal claims of the island would be to gravely underestimate the intellectual capabilities of the central government’s meritocrats, who, after all, have the capacity to rule over a country with 1.4 billion people. Therefore, to grasp the origins of Hong Kong’s unfortunate struggle for democracy, it would be better to regard the Beijing-Hong Kong relationship not as “mutual misunderstanding” but rather as a clash of two inherently antagonistic worldviews: that of liberal Hong Kong against that of realist China

Let us start by unpacking the liberal values of Hong Kong. How did it come about that the small island, legally part of the one-party state, dared to demand universal suffrage when that concept is clearly unwelcome by the Chinese government? The answer is rooted in Hong Kong’s history. In 1839, China’s Qing Dynasty attempted to crack down on the British opium trade, which led to widespread addiction in China and was thereby declared illegal. The British did not comply, and China, upon its defeat in the First Opium War, was forced to sign what it called the “unequal” Treaty of Nanjing, ceding the island of Hong Kong to the British in perpetuity. As the British expanded further into the peninsula in 1898, China had to sign another treaty, the Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory, and lease the New Territories to the British for 99 years. The treaty was set to expire on July 1, 1997, and China would then legally regain control of its lands (Blakemore 2019). In these 156 years of British colonial rule in Hong Kong, both mainland China and the island dramatically parted ways in everything concerning state ideology and social norms. Under British influence, Hong Kong acquired what can be called a “liberal identity.” Its capitalist economy, highly developed financial system, and light regulation gradually opened up to the world, and with that, opened up the mindset of the typical Hongkonger. This openness is best demonstrated by the fact that from 1945 to 1951, Hong Kong’s population exploded from 600,000 to over 2 million due to the hundreds of thousands of Chinese fleeing communist persecution on the mainland (Chen, Liu 2017) and also due to the diverse new settlers attracted by the city’s booming economy (Lok-kei 2019). Hong Kong thus became a beacon for refugees and immigrants hoping for a better life. This development made the city home to a vibrant multicultural community that embraced the Western values of liberty, equality, and democracy, founded in it by the British, who lived in a similar international hub with a flourishing economy.

Then, it came time for Hong Kong to return “back home” – something China was anxiously anticipating, considering how successful Hong Kong’s economy had become. Beijing was interested in strengthening the island’s reputation despite the fact that its regime was vastly different from the mainland’s authoritarian socialism. The 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration guaranteed Hong Kong 50 years of autonomy under the “one country, two systems” model. Hong Kong’s very own constitution, the Basic Law, was duly declared; its own legal and independent judicial powers were established, and liberal democratic rights were preserved. Needless to say, those provisions directly contradicted the Chinese ideology that made its citizens sacrifice freedoms in exchange for economic and political stability that by default grant Beijing’s harsh regime domestic legitimacy (Su 2019). This “well-deserved” legitimacy presupposed that the central government never intended for “one country, two systems” to lead to Hong Kong “spinning out of China’s control” (Nathan 2019). To create a sense of reliability, China granted the island special territorial and economic status, access to the profitable mainland’s markets, significant governmental tax exemptions, and a steady supply of basic necessities. This previously unprecedented Chinese generosity created certain expectations in the minds of Beijing lawmakers who believed that China had treated Hong Kong “with a light hand” (ibid). Considering that China is a realist state that is very sensitive to challenges to its sovereignty and territorial integrity, those expectations meant Beijing would ensure it had the power necessary to control Hong Kong’s domestic affairs. As such, under the Basic Law, Beijing has the right to directly elect the territory’s leadership, veto the laws passed by the city’s Legislative Council, and make final interpretations of the island’s “mini-constitution” (ibid). It is important to note here that for the central government, such rights are legitimate also because of its historical claims to the island: Hong Kong was initially a part of China before it was unjustly and forcibly surrendered to the British. Control of Hong Kong is thus a matter of historical justice for the Chinese, who devised the “one country, two systems” approach for 50 years precisely to give the city’s residents “plenty of time to get used to the Chinese political system” (Nathan 2019). At its inception, the father of the model, Deng Xiaoping, could hardly foresee that the moment the newly liberalized Hong Kong would feel Beijing encroaching on its autonomy, the islanders would attribute it to the start of the impending transition to a brutal one-party rule. This perceived threat sparked a crisis so severe that Hongkongers began to see no other choice but to launch intense and inevitably uncontrollable protests to protect their unalienable freedoms.

So how abusive is Beijing in the eyes of Hongkongers? Indeed, they have many grievances, the most significant of which is the inability to freely elect their own leader. Instead, their chief executive is chosen by a special committee of 1,200 elite residents indirectly selected among the tycoons and professionals whom China cultivates with enticing economic treats (Nathan 2019). This injustice lay at the root of the 79-day Umbrella Movement that in 2014 brought hundreds of thousands of citizens into the streets to protest Beijing’s refusal to allow direct elections of the executive (ibid). In addition to the city’s 2003 outright resistance to national security legislation and 2012 protests against nationalistic education, there have been mysterious disappearances of a handful of Hong Kong booksellers, media executives, and a Chinese billionaire, all of which have fueled suspicions about Beijing’s creeping control over the island (Albert 2019). The most recent demonstrations against the extradition bill, which would have given Beijing an opportunity to target every Hongkonger the Chinese Communist Party deems threatening to its regime, transformed into the island’s most protracted and violent protests. Over the course of six months, the protests slowly destroyed not only the city’s infrastructure but also its reputation as a luxurious financial hub. So far, China has been extremely reserved in taking measures to calm the protesters down, which might seem surprising. However, this extraordinary forbearance so diligently exercised by Beijing results not from a lack of strategy on how to deal with Hong Kong hysteria, but rather from its confidence in resolving the issue, as well as its realist outlook.

In “How China Sees the Hong Kong Crisis: The Real Reasons Behind Beijing’s Restraint,” a prominent political scientist specializing in Chinese politics, Andrew J. Nathan, obtained anonymous accounts of two Chinese regime insiders who suggest that Beijing is convinced the protests will soon outlive themselves. First, Beijing boasts a solid network of influential allies that it has secured through economic benefits, including the support of the Hong Kong labor movement and even its criminal underground. Second, ordinary citizens are becoming weary of what they see as meaningless, ineffective protests, and further violence will only accelerate their opposition to the movement. Third, Beijing is on its way to resolving Hong Kong’s economic insecurities, namely, the horrendous lack of affordable public housing that, according to one disturbingly graphic video from Vox (“Inside Hong Kong’s cage homes,” 2018), forces people to live in houses the size of one parking space. In Beijing’s opinion, this kind of unbearable economic hardship served as a catalyst for all the mayhem. In contrast, the China correspondent for the Los Angeles Times Alice Su in “‘It’s not about the money’: What Beijing doesn’t get about Hong Kong protesters,” maintains that it is Chinese

“propaganda” that pushes the notion that material concerns are at the heart of the protests; according to recent polling by the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute, “youth

dissatisfaction stems primarily from overwhelming distrust of the political system and the police.” However, as mentioned at the beginning of the paper, it is hard to believe that the Chinese

government “misrepresents” Hong Kong’s political sentiment. After all, Beijing can easily grasp it from the social media that the island’s residents are free to use, as opposed to other Chinese

cities. On the contrary, in this case, China believes what it says, and here is where its realist thinking explains the reasoning.

China is, to its core, a realist state; this has been demonstrated by the domestic and international policy successfully conducted by its all-powerful ruler. The Chinese Communist Party’s regime is carefully choreographed by President Xi Jinping, who, since taking power in 2012, “has set about extinguishing all challenges to his authority” (Osnos 2019). His personal achievements in this realm include abolishing term limits on the presidency and purging 1.5 million members of the Party in a fight against governmental corruption. For China, sovereignty is sacrosanct, and President Xi declared this ultimate realist value on a handover commemoration trip to Hong Kong in 2017, at which he warned that “‘any attempt to endanger China’s sovereignty and security’ or to challenge Beijing’s power would cross a red line” (Albert 2019). China’s main political goal is clearly security, while its main interest is survival as a strong, indestructible state. To achieve both, it needs a healthy Hong Kong that will continue to boost the country’s overall economic prosperity (although the mainland’s economic dependence on the island has diminished since its handover) and demonstrate that the Chinese governing model “might be preferable to the chaos of liberal Western democracies” (Prasad 2019). It is a powerful statement that, provided the trouble in Hong Kong paradise gets resolved, signals China’s aim to not only preserve the global balance of power but actually tip the scales in China’s favor by portraying it as “a credible contender for global leadership in the age of Trump” (Osnos 2019).

Despite the fact that China does recognize the “disaffection” among Hong Kong’s residents to be a “natural outgrowth of the territory’s colonial British past” (herein, as discussed, the suffering of the liberal mindset being fettered), currently, its by definition xenophobic realist mindset reveals that the Chinese choose to make the United States and the continuing influence of Western values a scapegoat for Hong Kong’s turmoil (Nathan 2019), similar to the “black hands” of a foreign cabal that China blamed for instigating the Tiananmen Square uprising in 1989 (Osnos 2019). Xi’s speech in September 2019 provides clear evidence: “Chinese leaders do not fear that a crackdown on Hong Kong would inspire Western antagonism. Rather, they take such antagonism as a preexisting reality – one that goes a long way toward explaining why the disorder in Hong Kong broke out in the first place” (ibid). For Beijing, this Western hostility stems from the mere fact of China’s rise. Therefore, it is not that China does not “get” that Hong Kong’s democratic values are a legacy left by its British friends; rather, it is its defensive realist worldview that makes Beijing place much emphasis on foreign hostility and economic problems instead of accepting the mere fact that Hongkongers are already “too liberal” to comply with China’s overly restrictive regime, especially considering the 71% of Hongkongers who, according to the University of Hong Kong ethnic identity survey, say they do not feel proud about being Chinese citizens, while only 11% would call themselves “Chinese” (Cheung, Hughes 2019). 

“Geopolitics 101,” as articulated by the prominent realist John Mearsheimer, is that “great powers are always sensitive to potential threats near their home territory” (2018). Hong Kong, for China, is home territory, and its turbulences could potentially break up the bigger Chinese home. Its calls for democracy are thus particularly threatening as this internationally prominent city, upon achieving independence, could set a dangerous precedent for other disputed Chinese territories such as Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Macau, and Taiwan, all of which will have their elections this January (Albert 2019). At the same time, under no circumstances can China grant these other territories the freedoms that it has so graciously endowed upon Hong Kong; such a move would signal the beginning of the end for the one-party rule that is so essential to China’s prosperity. In a word, “You need a government that makes the right decisions for you,” said Allan Zeman, the billionaire founder of Hong Kong’s nightlife district Lan Kwai Fong, who gave up his Canadian citizenship to become a Chinese national in 2008 (Su 2019). Although its realist emphasis on hard power is clear, China is not going to wreck Hong Kong just yet, as that would jeopardize its international reputation. For now, though, Beijing will stand still, watching Hong Kong destroy itself in the desperate struggle for unachievable democracy. China’s overarching power, embodied in the rapid technological advancements along with its extensive international presence in the form of land ownership, foreign investments, and construction projects, provides it with enough clout to be fearless about other states coming to Hong Kong’s rescue. It surely will not be a mistake to attribute to Hong Kong’s sad tale the conclusion Mearsheimer reached from Ukraine’s analogous struggle to embrace the liberalization so kindly offered to it by the West and to distance itself from “Mother Russia:” “Indulging the dreams” of some Hongkongers “is not worth the animosity and strife it will cause,” especially for Hongkongers themselves (2018). Although President Trump eventually signed the Hong Kong Democracy Legislation in November 2019, it is unlikely that he will want to risk the US economy by imposing unbearable sanctions on China; such sanctions would likely undermine recently resumed negotiations to end the grueling U.S.-China trade war. Instead, such a move would likely aid protests that, as Beijing sees it, could soon die out (Cochrane, Wong, Bradsher 2019). So far, no one has dared to save Hong Kong for fear of falling out of the rising power’s favor, and only the British are left to blame for creating a liberal Hong Kong in a land where the realist hand of the Chinese gestures unambiguously: we will use it to crush you for being who we don’t want you to be.

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