I read a very interesting article in the South China Morning Post today by an economist who’s spent considerable time in HK. Graeme Maxton, an economist, suggests that this is really a debate about HK’s economic future and that many of the problems in HK specifically are traceable to British rule, and that this isn’t just a fear of Chinese authority (although he doesn’t necessarily seem to be arguing against that idea, either).
If his analysis is correct, then this explains why Beijing has a lot to be worried about. It’s a weakening middle class giving the finger to its unresponsive government, and its a government with increasingly few ideas on how to respond. It’s worth mentioning that there is a labor movement in China that is increasingly showing a willingness to fight back against what it considers to be abuses by the elite.
On that note, I hadn’t heard of Graeme Maxton, and I’m sorry I haven’t because he seems like a really avant garde thinker.
He makes good points, kinda, but his focus is very narrow and he writes stuff like this:
If it was done easily, these folks wouldn’t need to be out in the streets, risking their lives every day for the past month or so.
And fixing the economic problems alone isn’t enough, IMO. There has to be a government system that will respond to the population, and the current one and the one in China aren’t that, except to react adversely, apparently.
He’s on target with this, tho:
Except he doesn’t mention the United States. My advice to my fellow Americans is to watch what’s going on in Hong Kong now and learn the techniques that the revolutionaries are using; I’m afraid that we’re gonna need them here in the US before too long.
His point is that the solutions themselves are obvious, not necessarily that the people upholding the current policies are going to give that power away easily.
The fight in Hong Kong isn’t entirely dissimilar to that of protesters in Moscow or Istanbul; they’re fighting corruption and incompetence. It’s been an assumption that there’s no hope; modern capitalists argue that wealth can only grow if the economy grows at 4-7%, thereby creating such great demand for labor and consumption that the market inevitably has to raise wages. People are growing tired of waiting; they want economic justice and equality. That’s true in the streets of Kowloon, and it’s true in the streets of Long Beach.
Couldn’t agree more, and I’m in agreement that there’s going to be a moment when things come to a head.
I don’t know how reliable CNBC is in reporting HK/China but if this article is true, it looks like things are about to get potentially very, very messy.
Regardless, I don’t think China feels it’s in a position to let this protest burn itself out. They’re getting fed up, and I have no doubt they’re worried that HK will encourage uprisings on the Mainland. China may be blocking out most of the protests, but there are people on the Mainland, especially in Guangdong Province, who must know what’s happening and China’s worried that word will spread. The last thing China wants now with their economy tumbling down is an inspired labor and anti-corruption movement.
It’s really complicated. You are thinking of the Chinese as a monolith, but even in the CCP there are different factions. Basically, part of the issue is that Xi’s faction doesn’t want a confrontation with the protesters in Hong Kong at this time. He’s already in a really bad position with the economy stalled and tanking, talks with the US going no where and companies leaving China for other manufacturing areas. Basically, since he’s the new Mao, all of this is on his head, and there is blood in the water. At the same time, there are several other factions that WANT him to fail. In addition and more relevent to China, there are factions that want to put down the protests in the harshest manner possible. In fact, the faction that gave us the Tiananmen Square massacre is still there and they are one of the ones who would love to send in the tanks. It would kill several birds with one stone for them, including making Xi look bad and further weakening him.
For the most part the mainland Chinese don’t really sympathize much with Hong Kong. But…they do see that the Hong Kong people are protesting and haven’t been stepped on or squashed, and that could be a very bad thing at this time, when things are not going very well in China.
It’s a real mess, and I think one wrong move or one faction trying to knife the other could bring a lot of death to a lot of kids in Hong Kong. I’ve been following this protest in Hong Kong through several of my channels, including China Uncensored who actually were there for about 2 weeks and had some interesting insights. I’m actually to the point where I dread checking up on it, thinking that maybe today the PLA has been ordered in to put down the ‘riots’.
Your point about the various factions and vested interests in China is illuminating. Sounds like a recipe for abrupt destabilization which, I guess, is often how things change in this world.
Definitely. And there is, of course, another wrinkle. Many of the CCP elite or folks who are part of the Chinese elite with patrons in one faction or another (read: Rich Chinese business people, because every rich Chinese business person you read about or hear about is in this camp) have property and vested interests in Hong Kong.
I think Xi is hoping this will all just blow over. But pressure is mounting, and he really can’t do anything without making a huge mess one way or another, and also weakening his own position and that of his faction. Think about what the blowback on China would be if they rolled the PLA in there for Tiananmen part 2. :eek: Yet, that might happen, and it might not even be Xi who orders it or who is pushing for it. Might happen anyway. On the other hand, if left unchecked, it could spread to the mainland. Like I said, the sympathy level for Hong Kong by most mainlanders is pretty low. But the mainland has a lot of it’s own issues, especially with the economic slowdown and economy tanking, and now this trade war with the US seems like it’s not going to be resolved (to paraphrase Vin Diesel, should have taken the money, Xi). I think China’s hope is to kick the can down the road, hope the Hong Kong protests stay contained and fade into the background, hope Trump et al are not re-elected, and hope that whoever is elected is willing to work with the Chinese (read: give China everything it wants without asking for concessions). I think that even if Trump isn’t elected, I seriously doubt at this stage that any potential candidate, nor the house or senate is going to do that, but I’m sure that’s what they are hoping for.
Just to be clear, I agree that the mainlanders don’t have much regard for people in HK and the feeling is mutual. But there are simmering tensions that could explode into the open under the right/wrong circumstances, and these protests might inspire them to speak out against authorities.
Look at the language that the government is using: terrorism. They’re laying down the groundwork, making the case for a crackdown of some kind. Maybe not a Tienanmen type crackdown, but something.
Having lived in both HK and China for years, I don’t see HK as a spark to drive protest and democracy in China. Note: I am painting with a very broad brush BUT Hongkongese treated visiting mainlanders like crap up until about a decade ago. When China first opened up in the 80’s and 90’s, an awful lot of Hong Kongese businessmen in China overlorded the locals by throwing around money and exploiting the local women. (I am a gweiloh but my mainland wife certainly experience more than her share when we lived in HK for many years in the 1990’s)
Be that as it may, the mystifying thing is that the HK government could reasonably easily shut down access to the airport to anyone without a valid ticket. The HK airport is out on a remote island with a small population. Here is a transportation map. There is a subway line, an airport express subway, and only one road. Checkpoints and tickets would be a headache and inconvenience, but logistically not all that daunting to screen at least most of the people coming in and out.
How legal that is in HK, I’m not quite sure. But my point being logistically not that daunting. Which leads to the follow on “why not lock down the airport?”
Multiple scenarios:
Local HK government never planned for such a scenario / incompetence
There have not been riots in HK since the 1960’s, so rusty on the crowd control
A faction of the mainland Chinese overlords haven’t upgraded their war games plan since 1997 passed with little more than a whimper
A faction or same faction of the mainland Chinese overlords are letting this burn out. Demonstrations went from about 1/8th of the HK population, and turning into a smaller but more activist group. I have no read on how well the general population views this. I will say HK is extremely densely populated, and no one wants tear gas seeping into their highrise, or in their subway station.
A faction of the Mainland Chinese overlords are formenting an excuse to show muscle (and I personnally believe this is a small group but their are extremist nutjobs in all societies that don’t care what the cost as long as it achieves the goal)
A less ominous crackdown but a crackdown nonetheless (ninja’d by asahi)
My colleague reported the HK airport was very quiet today with a lot of police and all the shops open.
My customer reported they had a colleague 2 days ago who’s flight got cancelled, managed to get out of the airport, then had the train stopped by protesters somewhere out in the New Territories, then eventually got a taxi to take to the border with Shenzhen, crossed over on foot thru customs and immigration, then finally was able to get to the Shenzhen airport on the China side to find an alternate routing to get back to the US. Planes trains and automobiles honky version
This weekend could get quite scary. A number of demonstrations, like student/teacher rallies, are planned for tomorrow and Saturday, and then a big march this Sunday.
My skeptical side is niggling at me that this will not end well.
I think China probably doesn’t want bloodshed. They won’t necessarily go into Hong Kong with a shoot everyone in sight mentality. My guess is, the PLA will enter HK and give the protests time to die down. But if they don’t…they’ll do whatever they deem necessary. If anyone thinks that because it’s HK and not the mainland, the PLA won’t actually kill anyone, think again – they’d do it to send a clear message to anyone in China who might be following events. That message is, “Protest, and this is what happens.”
As terrific and meaningful as it would be for FB to do so, it’s hard for a publicly traded corporation to take on China, at least if it operates traditionally (e.g. tries to maximize shareholder profits). On the other hand, there has been a very recent ‘manifesto’ issued by some credible people that the time has come to ‘balanc(e) the needs of shareholders with customers, employees, suppliers and local communities’. Shame they added the qualifier ‘local’ to communities. A global perspective would have been a natural. Even with that omission, it would be a welcome change.
If it happens it won’t be the PLA but rather the PAP. The Chinese People’s Armed Police Force (abbreviated: PAP) is a Chinese paramilitary police (Gendarmerie) force primarily responsible for internal security, riot control, antiterrorism, law enforcement, and maritime rights protection in China, as well as providing support to the PLA Ground Force during wartime.
I read the press conference write up with the HK Police. Basically, the HK police said they have no protocols, communication or anything in place if the PAP or PLA were to come into HK.
Hopefully, the authorities have learned a thing or three since Tiananmen about crowd control. My father was a MP in post WW2 Philippines, where there were massive crowds and riots. He said all it took was a couple of squads to go in with rifle butts on the upstroke and downstroke to go thru the crowd and divide them into more manageable segments until a critical mass is reached and the crowds evaporate. I hate to say this be he was *professionally *insulted that the Chinese went in as they did.
Sergey Brin pulled google out of China in 2010. "at the time, he compared the government’s attempts to enforce censorship and hack Gmail as having “the earmarks of totalitarianism” of the Soviet Union. In this week’s meeting, he said management about Chinese projects requires “a certain set of trade-offs.”
