# Seeds being sown: Hong Kong Elections
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeds-being-sown-hong-kong-elections/691649
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [June 25, 2014, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeds-being-sown-hong-kong-elections/691649 "2014-06-25T21:55:10Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Ryan\_Liam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_Liam)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2014, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeds-being-sown-hong-kong-elections/691649/1 "2014-06-25T21:55:10Z")
Seems like Hong Kong has had notable scuffles with Beijing in regards to holding legitimate elections.
[Hong Kong’s unofficial pro-democracy referendum irks Beijing](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/25/hong-kong-unofficial-pro-democracy-referendum-beijing)
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> Occupy Central with Love and Peace (OCLP), the pro-democracy movement that organised the poll, hopes to pressure Beijing into allowing Hong Kong’s 7.2 million residents to choose their own leader by 2017. If Beijing refuses, OCLP says, the movement will mobilise at least 10,000 people next month to block the main roads in Central, a forest of skyscrapers housing businesses and government offices on Hong Kong island’s northern shore.
I think this might be the way in which China becomes democratic, slowly and without rocking the boat too much, with the seed being sown by Hong Kong, which incidentally, had been influenced by democratic reforms of the last British governor [Chris Pattern](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Patten#Governor_of_Hong_Kong).
Now I don’t doubt that Chinese government wants to crack down on this, however surely it must be on a tightrope to not detract foreign investment in Hong Kong from de camping en mass if things got out of hand. I doubt they’d get away with another Tienanmen.
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### Author:  [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)
#### Post date: [June 26, 2014, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeds-being-sown-hong-kong-elections/691649/2 "2014-06-26T00:40:18Z")
They’ll probably allow Hong Kong to go ahead and vote, but what will happen is there will be a sudden influx of Communist Party politicians, and magically, they’ll receive greater than 50% of the seats. I don’t know that the Hong Kongers will accept it, when it happens, but I definitely see China trying.
In general, South-East Asia doesn’t believe in democracy. Letting the people run wild and influence politics just makes the government run less effectively. It’s like taking a corporation and, instead of having a hierarchy formed based on merit and capability, you hand over the keys to the rank and file and have them start voting on their own wages and stuff.\*
I don’t see China accepting true democracy in their territory, regardless of all the external (and internal) force that might come on them to do so.
- Hence why we live in a republic, not a democracy. Ideally, it finds a middle-road. But China doesn’t believe that.
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### Author:  [@Ryan\_Liam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_Liam)
#### Post date: [June 26, 2014, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeds-being-sown-hong-kong-elections/691649/3 "2014-06-26T01:17:22Z")
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> **Sage Rat**
> They’ll probably allow Hong Kong to go ahead and vote, but what will happen is there will be a sudden influx of Communist Party politicians, and magically, they’ll receive greater than 50% of the seats. I don’t know that the Hong Kongers will accept it, when it happens, but I definitely see China trying.
Even if they did something like this, it’s an admission of defeat, because they couldn’t kill the democratic process, they will try to co-opt it, thinking it will go away which it won’t and will chip away at the legitimacy of their rule. Something similar happened in the British Raj.
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> **Sage Rat**
> In general, South-East Asia doesn’t believe in democracy. Letting the people run wild and influence politics just makes the government run less effectively. It’s like taking a corporation and, instead of having a hierarchy formed based on merit and capability, you hand over the keys to the rank and file and have them start voting on their own wages and stuff.\*
Really, are you for real?
Southeast Asia does believe in democracy, otherwise Indonesia wouldn’t of found it necessary to democratize itself, or the Philippines, or Taiwan.
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> - Hence why we live in a republic, not a democracy. Ideally, it finds a middle-road. But China doesn’t believe that.
Oh sorry my mistake, I meant democracy in the way in which citizens could vote in free elections or have a free press and so on. I believe the _Chinese government_ doesn’t believe in the middle road, but the _Chinese people_ do.
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### Author:  [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)
#### Post date: [June 26, 2014, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeds-being-sown-hong-kong-elections/691649/4 "2014-06-26T02:40:01Z")
> [@Ryan\_Liam](#):
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> Southeast Asia does believe in democracy, otherwise Indonesia wouldn’t of found it necessary to democratize itself, or the Philippines, or Taiwan.
I only really know Japan, though I have friends from Singapore and have toured China, so it’s possible that I may have been too sweeping.
Checking out whether the ruling party has been consistent in Taiwan and the Philippines, it looks Taiwan stopped being a single-party state in the late 80s, and the Philippines never started. That seems to be a relatively good indication that they are indeed democratic-republics and that I was assuming too much.
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> Oh sorry my mistake, I meant democracy in the way in which citizens could vote in free elections or have a free press and so on. I believe the _Chinese government_ doesn’t believe in the middle road, but the _Chinese people_ do.
My belief was that the Chinese people (excluding Hong Kong) were relatively happy with their country and the government? I know that, recently, they were complaining about polution levels, but that seems more like a real-world complaint rather than a political-theory one.
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### Author:  [@Ryan\_Liam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_Liam)
#### Post date: [June 26, 2014, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeds-being-sown-hong-kong-elections/691649/5 "2014-06-26T05:04:15Z")
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> **Sage Rat**
> My belief was that the Chinese people (excluding Hong Kong) were relatively happy with their country and the government? I know that, recently, they were complaining about pollution levels, but that seems more like a real-world complaint rather than a political-theory one.
The fact is a one party government can never be popular because it doesn’t have the checks and balances in place to ensure there’s a curb on corruption and nepotism, which is rife in China.
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### Author:  [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)
#### Post date: [June 26, 2014, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeds-being-sown-hong-kong-elections/691649/6 "2014-06-26T05:19:55Z")
The people of Hong Kong weren’t allowed to vote for their governor while under British rule and free elections anywhere in China are a nightmare to the ruling class so I doubt we’ll see any of that despite what the official word is.
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### Author:  [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)
#### Post date: [June 26, 2014, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeds-being-sown-hong-kong-elections/691649/7 "2014-06-26T05:22:42Z")
> [@Ryan\_Liam](#):
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> The fact is a one party government can never be popular because it doesn’t have the checks and balances in place to ensure there’s a curb on corruption and nepotism, which is rife in China.
Which assumes popularity means choosing between the established organization and an equally viable alternative. Yet many in the world actively choose a poor government to anarchy.
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### Author:  [@Ryan\_Liam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_Liam)
#### Post date: [June 26, 2014, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeds-being-sown-hong-kong-elections/691649/8 "2014-06-26T11:59:07Z")
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> **Sitnam**
> The people of Hong Kong weren’t allowed to vote for their governor while under British rule and free elections anywhere in China are a nightmare to the ruling class so I doubt we’ll see any of that despite what the official word is.
Ok, let me refer you to the OP.
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> I think this might be the way in which China becomes democratic, slowly and without rocking the boat too much, with the seed being sown by Hong Kong, which incidentally, **had been influenced by democratic reforms of the last British governor Chris Pattern.**
In this it contained a link, which states
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> **Wikipedia**
> Patten’s most controversial actions in Hong Kong are related to the 1994 Hong Kong electoral reform. Legco members returned in 1995 were originally to serve beyond the handover, thereby providing institutional continuity across the reversion of Hong Kong to the PRC. Beijing had expected that the use of functional constituencies with limited electorates would be used to elect this council,\*\* however Patten extended the definition of functional constituencies and thus virtually every Hong Kong subject was able to vote for the so-called indirectly elected members (see Politics of Hong Kong) of the Legislative Council\*\*
The point I’m making is not that it’s going to be 100% instant democracy from the get go, but that slow gradual changes will have their own momentum after a while, and that it will eventually reach a stage of where the Chinese can have a proper democratic government.
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> **Sitnam**
> Which assumes popularity means choosing between the established organization and an equally viable alternative. Yet many in the world actively choose a poor government to anarchy.
Yet you’re assuming that anarchy would be the eventual result of such a change of government in China, but the Chinese I think will take the gradualist approach to democracy, and we’re seeing that in Hong Kong now.
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### Author:  [@nani](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nani)
#### Post date: [June 26, 2014, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeds-being-sown-hong-kong-elections/691649/9 "2014-06-26T22:16:40Z")
There are some interesting pro-democracy stirrings happening in local level politics in parts of China. Of course, labor protests happen by the thousands every year. I don’t see the Chinese government falling anytime soon without some kind of major, destructive crisis, but there is some change happening.
That said, I don’t think Hong Kong is a seed for that change. I’m happy to be corrected but I don’t see people in Mainland China viewing Hong Kong as an inspiration or a real model to follow. It doesn’t really rank among the bigger worries for the Chinese government (which include Xinjiang, economic growth, environmental issues, and some other things) either.