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HK OCCUPY 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO
Sep. 30th, 2015 10:33 amWe’ve had an embarrassment of riches in terms of public holidays here in Hong Kong this week. Monday was the Mid-Autumn Festival (with special guest star Hugh Jackman!). And tomorrow is National Day, in which we celebrate the 66th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic Of China.
Salute!
Unofficially, there’s another anniversary this week: the first anniversary of the start of the Umbrella Kids/Occupy HK protest. The Umbrella Kids did some speechifying, but there’s been no further occupying – at least not yet. You never know. This time last year no one expected them to block traffic in three districts for 79 days. And really, anything is possible when you develop a taste for the heady combination of righteousness and cheap theatrics.
On the other hand, turnouts ain’t what they used to be. The word is there were more cops than protesters at the rally. One of the People Power radicals wanted to occupy Harcourt Road for 87 minutes (one minute for each of the 87 tear gas canisters fired by police). No one else volunteered.
Naturally, there has been a lot of the discussion about Occupy HK’s accomplishments – or lack thereof. The Umbrella Kids still praise themselves and thump their chests with the kind of self-important grandeur that ensures them a future in politics. For the non-believers, it’s hard to put a positive spin on the fact that the Umbrella Kids made numerous demands regarding the HK Govt’s political reform package, and the HKG did not cave in to a single one of them.
Even the fact that the political reform package ultimately failed can’t reasonably credited to the Umbrella Kids – that was largely an own goal by the pro-govt DAB. And even if that hadn’t happened, the package didn’t have a big enough majority to pass anyway – and that likely would have been the case regardless of whether the Umbrella Kids occupied the streets or not.
Still, politics is the art of never admitting that you lost fair and square, so everyone will believe what they want to believe. So the Occupy HK crowd will keep speechifying from Hell to breakfast as though it matters.
That said, if we’re going to talk about “accomplishments”, I will say the Umbrella Kids did manage to accomplish two things:
1. They helped to polarize the city into angry, non-compromising “us vs them” factions that will define Hong Kong’s political landscape for the next 30 years.
2. They made it 100% clear to everyone in Hong Kong and the world that Beijing runs HK, has always run HK since July 1, 1997, and will continue to run it for the rest of the century. The “full-on democracy” game has been rigged from Day 1, and it was never going to be any other way. China wants HK to develop in a certain way so that once our SAR status expires in 2047, we will slot in more or less seamlessly with the rest of China, which by then will likely be a federation of democracies where you can vote for any candidate you want, as long as they swear loyalty to Beijing, with HK serving as one of the country’s key economic engines. And it is leaving nothing to chance. If you didn’t know that in 1997 (and you should have, really, if you were paying the slightest bit of attention or at least noticed the expiration date on our SAR status), you know it now.
So, thanks, Umbrella Kids.
By the way, I made up that “2047 federation of democracies” bit. I don’t know if that’s what China is planning. But I do know that ever since the first economic reforms in the 1980s, Beijing has always been about the long game. And HK was part of that as soon as Thatcher signed the handover agreement. Maybe she and her team knew that. Maybe not. Either way, I think Beijing knew, and I suspect they have always seen post-handover HK as an experiment in controlled democracy. “Hypothesis: can we establish ‘democracy’ in a way that appeals to trade partners and makes us look less like a dictatorship to the West whilst ensuring that the Party stays firmly in control?”
Why not? Lee Kwan Yu did it for Singapore.
Whatever their plans, it’s clear that Beijing never intended for HK to be “one country two systems” forever. But it’s also clear that they’d hoped to downplay that while HK’s democratic evolution was ongoing, at least until it was way too late to do anything about it. Thanks to the Umbrella Kids, Beijing was forced to show their hand early.
Still, it’s fair to ask: does it really matter to know the game is rigged? Maybe. There’s a lot of dithering right now about what to do next, and whatever does happen next will be shaped by the knowledge that our autonomy will always be limited.
Chief Umbrella Kid Joshua Wong has said whatever the movement does next, it will do with 2047 in mind. That’s actually a good idea. If China is playing the long game, it only makes sense to do the same.
Boss Leung, meanwhile, is making speeches about bringing “illegal” protests to justice.
There will probably be the usual protests tomorrow. They will probably achieve the usual results.
Interesting times.
Unoccupied,
This is dF
Salute!
Unofficially, there’s another anniversary this week: the first anniversary of the start of the Umbrella Kids/Occupy HK protest. The Umbrella Kids did some speechifying, but there’s been no further occupying – at least not yet. You never know. This time last year no one expected them to block traffic in three districts for 79 days. And really, anything is possible when you develop a taste for the heady combination of righteousness and cheap theatrics.
On the other hand, turnouts ain’t what they used to be. The word is there were more cops than protesters at the rally. One of the People Power radicals wanted to occupy Harcourt Road for 87 minutes (one minute for each of the 87 tear gas canisters fired by police). No one else volunteered.
Naturally, there has been a lot of the discussion about Occupy HK’s accomplishments – or lack thereof. The Umbrella Kids still praise themselves and thump their chests with the kind of self-important grandeur that ensures them a future in politics. For the non-believers, it’s hard to put a positive spin on the fact that the Umbrella Kids made numerous demands regarding the HK Govt’s political reform package, and the HKG did not cave in to a single one of them.
Even the fact that the political reform package ultimately failed can’t reasonably credited to the Umbrella Kids – that was largely an own goal by the pro-govt DAB. And even if that hadn’t happened, the package didn’t have a big enough majority to pass anyway – and that likely would have been the case regardless of whether the Umbrella Kids occupied the streets or not.
Still, politics is the art of never admitting that you lost fair and square, so everyone will believe what they want to believe. So the Occupy HK crowd will keep speechifying from Hell to breakfast as though it matters.
That said, if we’re going to talk about “accomplishments”, I will say the Umbrella Kids did manage to accomplish two things:
1. They helped to polarize the city into angry, non-compromising “us vs them” factions that will define Hong Kong’s political landscape for the next 30 years.
2. They made it 100% clear to everyone in Hong Kong and the world that Beijing runs HK, has always run HK since July 1, 1997, and will continue to run it for the rest of the century. The “full-on democracy” game has been rigged from Day 1, and it was never going to be any other way. China wants HK to develop in a certain way so that once our SAR status expires in 2047, we will slot in more or less seamlessly with the rest of China, which by then will likely be a federation of democracies where you can vote for any candidate you want, as long as they swear loyalty to Beijing, with HK serving as one of the country’s key economic engines. And it is leaving nothing to chance. If you didn’t know that in 1997 (and you should have, really, if you were paying the slightest bit of attention or at least noticed the expiration date on our SAR status), you know it now.
So, thanks, Umbrella Kids.
By the way, I made up that “2047 federation of democracies” bit. I don’t know if that’s what China is planning. But I do know that ever since the first economic reforms in the 1980s, Beijing has always been about the long game. And HK was part of that as soon as Thatcher signed the handover agreement. Maybe she and her team knew that. Maybe not. Either way, I think Beijing knew, and I suspect they have always seen post-handover HK as an experiment in controlled democracy. “Hypothesis: can we establish ‘democracy’ in a way that appeals to trade partners and makes us look less like a dictatorship to the West whilst ensuring that the Party stays firmly in control?”
Why not? Lee Kwan Yu did it for Singapore.
Whatever their plans, it’s clear that Beijing never intended for HK to be “one country two systems” forever. But it’s also clear that they’d hoped to downplay that while HK’s democratic evolution was ongoing, at least until it was way too late to do anything about it. Thanks to the Umbrella Kids, Beijing was forced to show their hand early.
Still, it’s fair to ask: does it really matter to know the game is rigged? Maybe. There’s a lot of dithering right now about what to do next, and whatever does happen next will be shaped by the knowledge that our autonomy will always be limited.
Chief Umbrella Kid Joshua Wong has said whatever the movement does next, it will do with 2047 in mind. That’s actually a good idea. If China is playing the long game, it only makes sense to do the same.
Boss Leung, meanwhile, is making speeches about bringing “illegal” protests to justice.
There will probably be the usual protests tomorrow. They will probably achieve the usual results.
Interesting times.
Unoccupied,
This is dF
