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I would argue that Beijing didn't anticipate the resolve of the protestors, but they would certainly know about and endorse Lam's backdown. China is happy to p
by tobtoh 7y ago
I would argue that Beijing didn't anticipate the resolve of the protestors, but they would certainly know about and endorse Lam's backdown.
China is happy to play the long game - they apply pressure to HK to bring them inline with China, people protest, they back of a little, but not all the way. They wait ... then apply pressure again. The idea is that by 2047 when the 'one country, two systems' arrangement expires, HK will fully accept the China way of life. Lam backing down is an easy way to defuse the situation for now and they can try again later.
I expect to see this cycle of peace, then protest, then peace again continue for years - each time, HK will lose a few more rights they used to have.
- dirtyid 7y agoNormally I would attribute cold technocrat calculations to Beijing as well, but circumstance is dramatically different as of 10 days ago. Xi just scored "people's leader" on August 25th, announced they will not appease HK protesters a few days later, domestic nationalism as been endorsed and cultivated (extremely rare for HK / internal matters), 70th anniversary is on October 1st. I don't think Xi is going to start his first month as people's leader capitulating to HK when the mainland is already at a frenzy. There's a reason CPC doesn't usually play the nationalism card, it's extremely hard to walk back.
- poukofiru 7y agoThat sounds likely. When Britain colonized Hong Kong, it took them more than 70+ years to pacify the people. Especially after the ‘67 protests, that resulted in 51 deaths. China is hoping the next generation will be more friendly. Like how the people of Macau are.
- ethbro 7y agoIf it wants the people to be friendly, it should probably start pumping a lot more money into jobs programs, addressing income inequality, and building a helluva lot of housing. Happy people don't protest as frequently. People who feel they have dim future prospects do. (Simply from a realpolitik perspective)
- guerrilla 7y agoI agree and I find it kind of ironic that those so-called communists turned out to be more nationalist than the nationalists who are now the liberals of Taiwan.
- xster 7y agoThat's what Tung Chee-Hwa tried to do as the first beijing friendly chief executive. Beijing can't decide what the legco votes for (since the functional constituency is by definition allocated to the local oligarchy who prefer to keep the status quo of focusing on wealth management, private banking than building productive, middle-class-geared economies).
- nickik 7y agoBased on what evidence did you come up with 70 years?
- spacehunt 7y agoThe 1967 riots were instigated by Maoists in an attempt to topple British rule. It had nothing to do with "local people". Recall that it happened during the Cultural Revolution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_1967_leftist_riots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_1967_leftist_riots
- justicezyx 7y agoMaoists are not local, and liberal democrats are, (supposedly). I wonder what kind of formal logic is this.
- houseofzeus 7y agoExactly, the protesters have to win every day. China only has to win once.
- justaguyhere 7y agoeach time, HK will lose a few more rights they used to have. Very likely. Sucks for HK people though :( Same story everywhere - nothing much changed after the Arab spring protests, for example. As impressive as they are, how long can Hong Kong people keep up this level of protests? Beijing can keep the pressure forever and play the long game
- nailer 7y agoHong Kong needs people in the PRC to start demanding their own representation. The CCP has might, but not enough to take on the Chinese people a second time. You can't be a people's republic if the people didn't vote for you.
- i_am_proteus 7y agoIs this sarcasm? While no authoritarian government can exist with no consent of the government, the PRC has no legal vehicle for citizens to disagree with the state.
- coldtea 7y agoHuh? If we're strict, it has plenty of avenues, including courts and elections [1]. They might be nominal, but legally they do exist and operate: [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_China
- i_am_proteus 7y agoElections are meaningless if the public can't decide who runs.
- StreamBright 7y agoYou are too hard on US elections. People wanted Bernie and got HRC.
- billfruit 7y agoThis is what I find the missing perspective in the coverage of this issue, I think instead of any hard actions, Chinese Govt is likely to just wait, perhaps for years and see the protests lose steam, while doing a few cursory measures to dissipate the protests. There is no sense of urgency the Government is showing towards tackling the protests.
- jayess 7y agoI'd be surprised if CCP exists in 2047.
- 188201 7y agoThe real reason for their backdown is that Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act in US will be likely to pass. This bill will punish HK official for violating human right. And potentially forbidden the use of financial services like Visa and Mastercard. However, it's not even a real backdown though. She just announce to start a motion to backdown, but it was still the decision of parliament to withdraw the bill, and the parliament was controlled by pro-Beijing parties. Practically even pro-Beijing parties care the voter's view so it may withdraw the bill, but it was uncertain whether there were an order from Beijing to vote down withdrawal after the protest was over, so still many uncertainty right here. Not to mention police brutality was not addressed.
- _hardwaregeek 7y agoForbidding VISA and Mastercard doesn’t sound like a good idea. Wouldn’t that lead to people using WeChat/AliPay which is controlled by the Chinese government?
- SllX 7y agoIt’s been an effective method of sanctioning individuals and organizations so far. WeChat and Alipay isn’t worth a damn outside of PRC, and sanctioning a handful of pro-Beijing individuals isn’t likely to change that. Truth is, the United States still dominates the global financial infrastructure and being cut off from that is a difficult pill for most to swallow.
- _hardwaregeek 7y agoI guess. But what would the average citizen use? Cash? Seems likely that somebody would step in to be the de facto online transaction provider. And the government probably would want some way to financially tie HK to the mainland.
- SllX 7y agoI think you are misunderstanding. These sorts of sanctions are highly targeted at specific individuals and organizations, not the entire HK citizenry.
- nickik 7y agoIf you want to see a really, really brutal version of this. Go look at how Stalin did the Collectivisation in Russia. There were multiple slowdowns and removal of some of the harshest demands, but after a couple of months or years they came back, sometimes this happened multiple times. The amount of violence was also regulated up and down. That said, the opposition defiantly helped, and in the End even Stalin did not get close to as far as he had hopped to get.