David ticks off Goliath in Hong Kong: Column
A few dozen Hong Kong university students established a pro-independence party earlier this year, the Hong Kong National Party, to field candidates for the territory’s quasi-democratic Legislative Council. Since then, Chinese officials and state-run media have issued a stream of angry and paranoid statements — among them threats to charge the students with treason and warnings that the pro-independence party is part of a broader effort by “international hostile forces” to provoke a violent “color revolution” aimed at “toppling China.”
How about that? Big, strong, rising China, exposed as a nervous “paper tiger” by 50 students.
This follows years of rising tension between China and the former British colony, which was returned to Chinese control in 1997 and placed under a semi-autonomous administration that many consider a puppet of Beijing. Since the handover, China has violated all of the pledges it made regarding democracy, press freedom, and freedom of expression in the handover agreement with Britain. Public opinion polling in Hong Kong consistently reveals growing pessimism and unhappiness under Chinese rule, and an increasing number of Hong Kongers are choosing to emigrate to Britain or America rather than to remain as China “destroys freedom” in the territory.
Anger and resistance toward Chinese rule in Hong Kong has been particularly strong among young people. In 2013, Beijing’s nerves were rattled when the Occupy Central movement pledged massive civil disobedience action in Hong Kong’s central business district in the effort to win democratic rights. In 2014, Hong Kong was rocked by the Umbrella Revolution protests that again put Beijing on edge. Repeated calls for an independent Hong Kong have likewise sent Beijing into hissy fits.
In each case, Beijing’s reaction has shown weakness rather than strength. Clearly, China's rulers see such developments as a threat to their hold on power over Hong Kong and perhaps even over mainland China, not to mention their hopes of gaining control of Taiwan. “Beijing has found itself in a no-win situation in Hong Kong,” writes China critic Big Lychee at The Nanfang. Protesters in Hong Kong “have found one of Beijing’s hyper-sensitive nerves,” according to Big Lychee, “and they are mercilessly needling it for all it’s worth.”
All that Beijing and its puppets in Hong Kong seem to be able to talk about, as Big Lychee further observes, is how nobody should talk about Hong Kong independence. Talk of independence “threatens the safety of Hong Kong,” said People’s Daily (while still talking about it), so much that “Hong Kong residents should remain highly alert” to such talk.
The stream of venom and vitriol directed at Hong Kong democracy and independence activists by Chinese state-run media has been incessant, ugly, and highly unbecoming the “great power” China imagines itself to be. Student activists in Hong Kong have been accused of “sedition” and attacked as “useless young people” with “personality disorders” whose “only social life is throwing bricks in the streets.”
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I remind you again that we’re talking about a political party consisting of fewer than 50 founding members with no known history of brick-throwing. One might think, however, that tens of thousands of people were even now filling Hong Kong’s streets lobbing Molotov cocktails and setting police cars on fire.
Chief among the international “hostile forces” accused of collusion with independence activists is the United States through its consulate-general in Hong Kong, which Beijing seems to increasingly regard as enemy territory. These charges by China include secret meetings between activists and consular staff and covert financial assistance to activists for the sole purpose of doing harm to China. This is not the first time China has accused the United States of “interfering in Hong Kong’s affairs,” nor is it likely to be the last. Such techniques are not unknown by the U.S., but there is no evidence to support these claims of a U.S. conspiracy.
While China presumes "great power" status rivaling the United States, perhaps China's rulers should ask themselves how angry or threatened the U.S. government would be if 50 students from a state university were to start a political party with the aim of declaring their state an independent republic. No truly great power should ever have cause for such overreaction.
Mark C. Eades is a writer and researcher with the Foreign Policy Association. Now based in Southeast Asia, he worked in China from 2009 to 2015. Follow him on Twitter: @MC_Eades.
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