The Lunar New Year is upon us again.
Specifically, the Year of The Horse.
Have I got just the playlist for you.
DISCLAIMER: I made this back in 2023 as a kind of response to a setlist by BBC Radio’s Gideon Coe in which he did three hours with songs about horses. I did likewise, just to see if I could do it.
Obviously, I could. And I did.
Anyway, it was lying around handy, and I didn’t see the point of making another playlist. So this will have to do.
Given how hard Hong Kong’s pro-democracy activists have been fighting to establish true democracy in Hong Kong, you’d think they’d also be happy at the news that the US has managed to survive Donald Trump’s attempt to destroy democracy there, and that Trump has been denied a second term.
And you’d be not entirely correct.
Some pro-Democracy activists in HK (not all, but a lot) are disappointed in Biden’s victory, and up to Election Day were hoping out loud that Trump would win re-election.
If that sounds odd considering Trump basically did to BLM protesters and America in general what Carrie Lam did to them, well yes it is.
This WaPo story provides a good explanation of what’s going on, as does this Twitter thread from Sharon Yam. The short version:
1. With China now actively oppressing HK, they are in desperate need of overseas political allies. They want a US strongman who will crush Xi Jinping and the CCP, and they think Trump is that guy. They like that Trump has disrupted every polite political norm regarding China and Taiwan, and that he blames China for COVID-19, and that he has taken action against China for its treatment of HK (namely, signing the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act (HKHRDA) and imposing sanctions on HK leaders for violating human rights).
2. A lot of the younger pro-Democracy activists don't really follow US politics that closely, so don’t have much of an idea of just what BLM is or the historical context in which it is happening.
3. What they do know about US politics from the last few years largely comes from the same funnel of disinformation that informs Trump and his MAGA base. Jimmy Lai – the media tycoon and publisher of Apple Daily (the last pro-Democracy newspaper left in HK) currently arrested under the National Security Law – has been pushing a lot of pro-Trump pieces in his paper that echoes the kind of stuff you hear on Fox News. Meanwhile a lot of pro-Trump posts in HK tend to parrot just about every conspiracy theory you’ve ever heard, from Deep State plots and Fake News Liberal Media to Obama teaming up with the former Italian PM to steal the election via satellite and “The Capitol Riots were Antifa in disguise”.
4. They think Biden will be soft on the CCP because they’re under the impression that Democrat Presidents generally aren’t as hawkish as Republicans. Which is not really accurate, historically speaking (see Points 2 and 3). If nothing else, the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act was a very bipartisan bill passed by Congress, not some unilateral executive order Trump cooked up.
Anyway, it’s weird – especially when remembering Trump himself supports and admires Xi Jinping (as he does with most dictators and strongmen). And while he did at some point say he supported HK protesters, he initially planned to veto the HKHRDA, he only signed it to put pressure on China to get a better trade deal out of them.
It’s a minor thing in terms of the US election, of course – the political opinions of HK activists aren’t going to affect the outcome one way or another.
But it’s potentially damaging to the HK democracy movement, which needs unity now more than ever. At the moment a US-style rift is developing (at least online) between pro-Trump activists who want Trump to kick the CCP’s ass and anti-Trump activists who think the movement loses credibility if it’s not in solidarity with US BLM protesters also fighting oppression.
As you might expect, I’m inclined to agree with the latter view– partly because I have a pretty good handle on US politics (hopefully), and also because I think it’s hypocritical to oppose oppression in your own backyard while advocating or turning a blind eye to it elsewhere just because you think you’ll benefit from it. If you oppose Xi Jinping but support Trump, that tells me you don’t really oppose dictatorship – you just want a dictator that’s on your side.
And sure, the objective is for neither dictator to control HK – but the thing about attaining power you’ve never had before because the system was rigged against you, is that it’s always tempting to take steps to ensure you never lose that power again for the good of the country because the losing side is just Too Dangerous To Be Allowed Back In Power.
And we know where that road leads.
Anyway, one thing everyone agrees on is that Hong Kong is now effectively a police state and a dictatorship masquerading as a partial democracy. So whatever they think of Biden, hopefully his China policy will keep the pressure on in ways that don’t result in World War 3, and we can stop arguing about that and focus on the task at hand.
On the other hand, we already know that the damage done from disinformation and gaslighting is difficult to undo. That’s why America is in for a long decade as Trump’s legacy festers in the MAGA cult at large and living in an alternate reality from the rest of us. The same may be true for a significant portion of the HK democracy movement – and that’s not really what we need at a time when our own govt is trying to write its own alt-reality and force the rest of us to accept it or face possible jail time (at least if we speak truth out loud).
Down the rabbit hole,
This is dF
ITEM: The Great Hong Kong National Security crackdown continues, with the police arresting ten (10) people for “collusion with foreign forces”. Notably, one of them was Jimmy Lai, founder of Next Media and publisher of Apple Daily ( the last openly pro-democracy newspaper in HK), and someone who has been on the Beijing hit list for a very long time.
So here’s some bloggery about that:
1. This is essentially about petty revenge. The HK govt, Beijing and the police hate Lai, and have wanted to punish him for a very long time. Lai has always been a media rabble-rouser, both in HK and Taiwan, and the CCP has always been a favorite target of his. He’s already been arrested for unlawful assembly and related charges, but that’s not enough for BJ – they want him (and people like him) in jail for the rest of his life.
2. No one knows what “collusion with foreign forces” means in this case – and it’s not certain we’ll ever find out – but we do know that Beijing’s definition of such things tends to be very loose. For example, last month the police arrested four kids on NSL charges of secession – where in this case the act of “secession” was literally sharing a pro-independence article on Facebook.
3. With people now convinced that this spells the death of press freedom in HK, at least one Beijing official is trying to spin this by claiming Apple Daily is not a newspaper but a political organization that just happens to print newspapers. So it doesn’t count as curbing press freedom, see?
In other words, you’re a media organization until Beijing decides you’re not a media organization but a rebel political group.
4. Also, the reassurances about press freedom aren’t that convincing when remembering the police didn’t just arrest Lai – they sent a hundred cops to raid the Apple Daily office for “evidence” – and then arbitrarily banned certain media from the press briefing.
The police made an attempt to explain it the following day:
“It depends on the past performance of those media — whether they behaved in a way that the police deemed unprofessional,” the police chief said. “Criteria include whether their reporting is objective, whether they have participated in actions other than reporting, whether they would obstruct officers from performing their duty or if they would pose danger to officers.”
Which isn’t helpful, but it does illustrate a few things: (1) Police chief Chris Tang has a list of media he does not like and will not cooperate with, (2) he clearly thinks press freedom should be limited to news outlets he personally deems worthy, and (3) if the govt ever decides to implement an accreditation system for journalists (which the police have openly advocated for some time), Tang already has a wish list of who he wants rejected.
This is, after all, the same police chief who is obsessed with the idea that some reporters who show up to cover the police are not actual reporters but protesters disguised as reporters. Or something. I have no idea what he thinks these clandestine fake journalists (if they exist, and he’s never proven that they do) are up to. I suspect he doesn’t either because he’s just making it up to justify police violence against anyone wearing a press vest.
5. It’s also worth remembering the broader context in which this happened. Ever since the NSL was passed, press freedom in HK has been eroding one step at a time.
Rachel Cheung has compiled a list here. But the pattern is clear: the HK govt is working make it very difficult for foreign journalists to work here, and attempting to establish norms in which media is forced to self-censor or stick to stenography if they want to avoid an NSL rap. Loyalist papers like Ta Kung Pao will get access and exclusives because they can be counted on to toe the govt line, and even serve as cheerleader.
For everyone else, the Apple Daily raid and selective came across as theatre that was intended to send a clear message to all other media outlets: watch what you write, or you may be next.
That’s certainly how the local Foreign Correspondents Club is taking it. And, you know, they’re not wrong.
6. Still, it’s not all doom and gloom. For one thing, Apple Daily wasn’t shut down. It’s still in operation. Indeed, it went to press the very next day with a very defiant headline vowing to fight on despite govt oppression and an expanded print run of 550,000 copies (as opposed to the usual daily run of around 70,000 copies).
Result: as far as I know they sold every copy. And the company’s stock price jumped over 700% in two days.
Bet that annoyed the govt no end.
FULL DISCLOSURE: I bought two copies (see photo, above). Which technically means I could be arrested for helping to fund collusion, should the police or Beijing decide to interpret it that way. But then they’d have to arrest 550,000 people, so it’s probably not worth the effort.
Meanwhile, a restaurant owned by one of Lai’s sons – who was also arrested as part of the same sweep – did awesome business yesterday.
Because this is how we protest in HK now. We can’t march, and even holding up blank signs in a shopping mall is illegal now – but we can find other ways to make our feelings known.
How do you like them apples,
This is dF
Given what I’ve posted about Hong Kong recently regarding the national security law – and what you may have heard/read in the news – it probably sounds like HK has become a totalitarian police state where we’re all forced to worship Xi Jinping and Carrie Lam, we need police permission to do anything, and making any negative comment about Xi, Lam or the police will result in negative feedback – cyberbullying, police harassment, a blast of pepper spray in yr mug, re-education camps, etc.
And, you know, kind of.
To be honest it’s not quite that bad. Not yet.
To be clear, there is definitely a deliberate chilling of speech and a curtailing of speech-related liberties – banning slogans, prohibiting schoolchildren from singing that song, yanking books off library shelves, arresting kids for silently waving blank placards, press self-censorship, etc. And of the 10 people who have been arrested under the NSL to date, most were for speechcrime.
The chief exception is the guy who crashed his motor scooter into some cops – he’s been charged with terrorism, even though available video strongly indicates that it was accidental, although he was also carrying a “Liberate Hong Kong / Revolution Of Our Times” flag, which is considered secession under the same law. (Important clarification: “trying to hit people with a motorbike” is not an act of terrorism or a violation of any other law when the police do it to protesters.)
So things aren’t good.
On the other hand, it’s worth mentioning that many people here do support the govt and the NSL – or at the very least aren’t bothered by it, whether it’s because of self-interest, business reasons, political apathy or an unshakeable belief that It Can't Happen Here – HK’s rule of law will keep the authorities from abusing their power.
As for everyone else, there’s been talk about how HK is “dead”, the protesters lost, and we’re resigned to either shutting our traps or fleeing the country while we still can. Game over.
But resistance isn’t dead.
You can read this piece from Tom Grundy, co-founder of Hong Kong Free press, who has vowed to go down swinging in terms of media coverage and refusing to self-censor (clearly distinguishing HKFP from other English language outlets, particularly the South China Morning Post, which employs some excellent reporters but also has editors who have loudly celebrated the NSL in editorials).
Meanwhile, indie bookstores like Bleak House Books have vowed to stay open and sell whatever they want until the police come and take them away.
There’s also this op-ed from frontline reporter Karen Cheung, who notes that really, HK has always been a tough place to live, but that we always adapt somehow.
… not everything has disappeared. The bookshop near my flat posted a message on social media: “Life goes on, resist fear.” A reporter I know tweeted, “I’ll just try my best to pretend this law doesn’t exist, keep calm, and carry on.”
I don’t want to downplay how terrifying the national security law is. People were arrested under that law on the first day, some of them just for carrying a flag bearing suddenly “outlawed” slogans. Courts can deny bail and hold secret trials. No one knows how to navigate this new reality.
Yet people are already coming up with cheeky, humorous ways of circumventing the new rules, resisting the temptation to be too obedient and give in to the chilling effect. We will continue to find defiance in unexpected places.
If nothing else, according to Jessie Pang at Reuters, you’ll find it in the young people who voted (and in some cases ran) in the primary. They know that if anything is going to change, it’s up to them. They’re under no illusions that they’ll win, but they know that it’s better to try and fail than to give up, just as they know that the Establishment pan-Demos still tend to see this as a rules-based scenario, and that you can beat Beijing by using its own rules against it. The trouble is that Beijing not only doesn't respect the rules, but rewrites them at will and interprets them randomly to suit its needs.
So, while we can’t realistically do much about the NSL and whatever abuses will inevitably occur (and arguably already are), we can adjust to this reality and resist as best we can. Yes, things are likely to get worse in the coming weeks, and eventually even the pro-gov/BJ supporters will find out the hard way that they are not exempt. But that doesn't mean we might as well give up and accept it. If we can't win in the streets or at the polls, we can always refuse to live in fear.
Because they want us to live in fear. So let’s not do that.
Have a beer with fear,
This is dF
Hong Kong had its first – and possibly last – primary election over the weekend.
To explain briefly:
HK doesn't normally have primaries in the same manner as the US. But the pan-Democratic parties (which are legion) have never held a collective majority in in the Legislative Council (LegCo) – in part because the parties keep splitting into smaller factions, which ends up splitting the vote to the point where pro-Beijing parties tend to win.
So the pan-Demo organization People For Democracy organized a primary election to help the various parties work out which pan-Demo candidates have the best chance of winning and then back those candidates in the General Election in September. The Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute (PORI) – an offshoot of HK University which conducts public opinion polls – is collecting the data and tallying votes.
Another reason for doing this is that most pan-Demos are pretty sure that the upcoming LegCo election is their last chance to win a majority, not least because the govt has been looking for every excuse they can (often linked to last year’s protests) to disqualify pan-Demo candidates to ensure they don't win a majority.
Indeed, even though the primary is not against election rules, various HK govt officials (including, of course, Carrie Lam) have naturally said that all of this could potentially violate the new National Security Law. Their reasons? (1) it's cheating for the pan-Demos to figure out in advance which of their candidates have the best chance of winning and (2) it's a violation of the national security law for opposition parties who oppose govt policies to win a majority because opposing the govt is sedition. On the other hand, if the opposition parties agree to support everything the govt proposes, then that's perfectly legal. See?
[Additional note: these are the kind of arguments you get from people who have no idea how something works but think they do.]
It’s also notable that the night before the election, police raided PORI and seized some of their computers – supposedly for something unrelated to the election. Luckily, they didn’t take the computers with the election data on them.
Anyway, I voted. I don't think I'll go to jail for it, if only because 610,000 people voted. So I don’t think they have the capacity to arrest that many people at once. More than likely they’ll arrest the organizers if they decide to arrest anyone.
So, a brief Q&A:
1. Is 610,000 a good number?
Yes, in the sense that the PFD was expecting 170,000. Every one of those are verified voters.
2. Will it actually help the pan-Demos win a majority?
No idea, but it’s unlikely, if only because I fully expect the HK govt to arrest and/or disqualify the candidates who won the primary (all of whom, as it happens, are the younger and more blatantly anti-Beijing candidates rather than the moderate Establishment pan-Demos).
Also, it depends on whether the various pan-Demo factions really can unite behind a candidate that may not tick all their ideological boxes. (For the Americans, it’s kind of like convincing Sanders supporters to vote for Joe Biden.)
3. Could the govt just cancel the elections?
They could, though legally it’s tricky, and they’re trying to pass themselves off to the international community (especially investors) as a reasonable regime that totally believes in freedom and democracy despite beating up, tear-gassing and arresting people for advocating just that. So I think they’ll settle for rigging it in their favour.
4. Isn't the fact that they didn't send the police out to stop the primary a good sign?
Not really. As I said, the HK govt is desperately selling the narrative that the NSL all about freedom and democracy and the NSL was only necessary because a tiny group of violent separatist terrorists (trained and funded by mysterious foreign agencies) were trying to overthrow China by firebombing the streets of Hong Kong and sticking Post-it Notes all over the place. Beating the crap out of decidedly non-violent people who support (currently) legal political parties who are clearly not doing anything technically illegal creates the kind of optics that make that narrative a tough sell.
Yes, so does banning slogans, prohibiting schoolchildren from singing that song, yanking books off library shelves and arresting kids for silently waving blank placards. But then I never said their arguments make sense, and HK/BJ either don’t know or care that they don’t – their defense of the NSL, police brutality and censorship is essentially one big gaslighting exercise, and they seem convinced that if they repeat it enough times (despite all evidence to the contrary) the rest of the world will have no choice but to believe them. I mean, these are the same people who said that the press will have 100% press freedom under the NSL as long as they don’t write anything that violates the NSL.
Anyway, as I say, they’ll settle for arresting the organizers (likely starting with Benny Tai, who they absolutely hate) and disqualifying candidates.
Developing …
You choose, you lose,
This is dF
Today marks the 23rd anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong from the UK to the PRC under the One Country Two Systems arrangement.
Alternatively, it’s Year 0 of the second handover to China in which One Country Two Systems has been changed to One Country Two Nearly Identical Systems.
Which means I might go to jail for posting this. Or not. Let’s see, shall we?
1. As expected, Beijing approved and enacted its national security law (NSL) for HK yesterday. Characteristically, they released the text of the national security law last night. In the middle of the night. In Chinese only. And only after the law was already in force.
Several people have already translated it into English. You can read this explainer if you like, or this more detailed translation.
Anyway, for the most part it's as bad as we suspected. And even where it doesn't sound so bad, there are two caveats: (1) the wording is intentionally vague to allow for very loose interpretation of what counts as an offense, and (2) the law basically says that Beijing has final say on what does and doesn't count, and that the law supersedes any HK law it might come into conflict with.
So for all intents and purposes all of the human rights violations that regularly happen in mainland China in the name of national security can now happen here.
Carrie Lam, for one, seems mighty pleased.
As well she should – Beijing has fixed the protest problem she created in the first place, and now she can go around blathering about how HK is harmonious and safe now that all political opposition has been suppressed.
2. The chilling effect is real – even before the details of the law was revealed, some people were taking cover. Which evidently was the point. Anyway, two of the opposition parties founded after the 2014 umbrella occupation have disbanded, some protesters are deleting their Twitter accounts, church leaders who opposed the NSL have deleted their posts, some “yellow economy” (pro-protest) restaurants have closed, and Chickeeduck is being evicted from a mall. And all that before we even knew what was in the law.
President Xi Jinping is smiling so hard right now his face may just freeze that way.
3. The HK police are also happy because why wouldn’t they be? They’ve already been greenlighted to do anything they want to anyone they don’t like.
4. Carrie Lam’s predecessor CY Leung is so happy he’s now offering bounties of up to HK$1 million for anyone who provides clues that aid the arrest of "national security law offenders", or to those who have information on "anyone who has fled the city".
Put another way, CY sees the NSL as his ticket to get revenge on every last pro-Democracy politician and activist who gave him crap while he was CE. (Indeed, a lot of his sideline commentary in the last year has included everything from the usual foreign conspiracy theories and saying the police should use even more violence on protesters to hoping the NSL would be retroactive to the point where anyone who staged a protest during his admin would get life in prison.)
5. Since 2003, we’ve typically marked July 1 with two activities: (1) a flag-raising ceremony that no one attends unless they’re paid to be there and (2) an all-purpose protest march covering whatever grievances the people have that year.
The latter is now illegal under the NSL, although police had already banned this year’s march under the COVID-19 social distancing rules that at this point exist solely for the purpose of enabling police to ban protests. Maybe now that they don’t need that excuse, they’ll drop the rules altogether?
Activists are determined to march anyway. It would be great if 2 million people (or more) showed up, though that’s unlikely. Anyway, the police have already prepared brand new warning flags for them.
[The running gag on Twitter is that protesters will be teargassed, beaten and arrested before they can finish reading the warning. Ha ha.]
6. As for what this all means for the protest movement, I suppose that depends on what happens next. There’s been a lot of chatter about how the protesters went too far and ended up accelerating the arrival of 2047 (the year our SAR status was to expire) and gained nothing. Others say the protests have worked in a broader sense because it not only exposed the corrupt violence inherent in the system and proved that the HK govt was always a Beijing puppet, but also forced the sort of crackdown needed to rally international pressure on Beijing, who frankly has been throwing its weight around a lot in recent years since Xi became President.
While we’re waiting for that to happen, I like to think that resistance in HK will take smaller, subtler forms – mini flash mob performances of the alt-national anthem, midnight graffiti, tiny acts of defiance to keep hope alive. But for now I think a lot of people will go silent, if only to regroup and figure out what to do next.
7. Since people have asked:
We are fine, and I don’t expect the current situation to impact us personally for the time being. The general wisdom (such as it is) is that the HK govt/Beijing will slap NSL vengeance on prominent opposition figures first – likely the ones who have already been arrested during the course of the protests. They’re the ones who will be prosecuted and jailed first to serve as examples to the rest of us. The objective is rule of fear, and the authorities will be just as happy if the average malcontents and dissenters either shut up or leave HK altogether – if only because jailing over 2 million people is time consuming, expensive and not the kind of thing you want to be doing when HK’s unemployment rate is as high as it is.
So for the near future, at least, I don’t think I have anything to worry about beyond having the occasional post deleted or flagged. Beyond that, who knows?
Developing (obviously) ….
Under the gun,
This is dF
EDITED TO ADD [3:30pm]: Well that didn't take long. The police have made their first arrest under the NSL. The offense: allegedly carrying a flag saying "Hong Kong Independence".
The reception to Beijing’s plan to slap a National Security Law (NSL) on Hong Kong in the name of “urgency” – and the HK police’s reaction to that reception – has been about what you’d expect.
Of course, not everyone is freaking out about the NSL. Quite a lot of people welcome it, and have been going around making very conspicuously public statements saying so. Every govt department head has been releasing statements supporting the law – each and every one of them verbatim copies of each other apart from the dept name and corresponding serial number. So you know they’re sincere.
Meanwhile, Beijing officials, HK govt officials and pro-Beijing editors and pundits have spent the last few days making public statements or publishing op-eds assuring everyone (especially the international community) that their fears are unfounded. There is nothing to worry about. All is well.
And so on.
Pretty much all of them boil down to the same basic points:
1. Everyone has national security laws, why can’t we?
2. The NSL will only apply to a tiny, miniscule minority of people. If you are not one of them, you have nothing to fear.
3. The NSL will bring peace and harmony to HK, and all this political turmoil will be a thing of the past, and we can get on with our lives and the economy can recover and everything will be awesome.
I’m not kidding about the last one. Here’s our first CE Tung Chee-hwa saying it. And here’s SCMP columnist Alex Lo calling the NSL a “masterstroke” that means “Hong Kong can now be depoliticised and get back to reviving its economy and improving people’s lives”.
Zounds! Imagine that. Years of polarized politics, frustration at the broken promises of universal suffrage, mistrust of the police, and fears of being “disappeared”, magically wiped away just like that by this one law.
“Well, why didn’t they say so earlier?” etc.
As you might imagine, I find their reassurances rather unreassuring. And one reason (of many) is that not a single one of these people has said exactly HOW the NSL will bring peace and harmony.
Seriously: how? I want one of these people to please spell out for me in detail how NSL will accomplish this in a way that isn't scary or alarming.
None have. I think I can guess why.
I’ve noticed that statements and op-eds opposing the NSL have gone into great detail as to why it’s a bad idea and means the end of One Country Two Systems, giving historical and contemporary context, with numerous examples of how “national security” could be (and already has been) abused in China and elsewhere to stifle and punish opposition.
See for example this column from Cliff Buddle, which ran in SCMP the same day Alex Lo’s column did. He makes a detailed and thoughtful analysis (that saves me a great deal of typing) explaining why there’s good reason to worry about the NSL, and to doubt Beijing’s claims that it will be very narrowly applied.
By contrast, Alex Lo’s column doesn’t back up his assertion at all. He doesn’t explain how the NSL will depoliticize HK, end the protest violence and go back to normal. It simply will. As if the entire problem all along was that we didn't have Draconian enough laws to deal with these punks throwing petrol bombs in the streets. Now that we’re going to have one, problem solved and we can all get along.
There are various reasons for the gaping plot hole in such declarations. For one thing, the people making them are under no obligation to defend their conclusions. It’s not like the law won’t passed if not enough people are convinced that it’s necessary, so why make an effort to back your argument?
For another, the point of these statements is really to be seen publicly declaring sworn loyalty to the new regime. These people know where the power lies, and like good Quislings they’re making sure the Powers That Be point the NSL crosshairs at someone else.
Also, at least for now, no one wants to say the quiet part out loud – the NSL will bring about peace and harmony by using the strong arm of radical law enforcement to terrify the opposition into silence and make examples of anyone who resists.
Voilà: peace and harmony.
This is what China does with its malcontents – this is what the HK govt and its supporters want for HK.
They'll say they don't, of course. And you know, I’m sure many of them imagine in their heads that we’ll still have the same freedoms (or at least they will, because they don't harbour verboten political beliefs, so same thing, really). And maybe some of them actually believe the NSL will be only used against the most violent radicals, and that once those people are dealt with, everyone will be right as rain.
In reality, it's a classic case of trading liberty for security without the slightest understanding just what the price of that security will be. Or maybe they do – and they’re okay with that as long as it’s someone else paying that price.
I wonder how they’ll feel if the price becomes higher than they expected, and where they might draw the line – midnight house raids? Disappearing journalists? Xinjiang-style re-education camps? Tiananmen 2.0?
Welp. We’ll find out.
The price of everything and the value of nothing,
This is dF
Thursday night, Beijing’s National People's Congress Standing Committee announced it will put forward proposals to enact national security legislation in Hong Kong that will officially make sedition, treason, foreign interference and terrorism crimes in the SAR – bypassing the HK government’s Legislative Council in the process.
By no coincidence, this comes after the HK govt, the HK police, pro-government politicians and Beijing liaison officials police have spent past few months consistently building up the narrative that the protest movement as secessionists and terrorists backed by foreign interference – which just happen to be the exact specific things this bill is targeting.
You see where this is going, yes?
Backgrounder: Under the Basic Law (the mini-constitution that governs Hong Kong under the One Country Two Systems arrangement that allows HK to operate separately from China for 50 years), Article 23 requires the HK govt to enact legislation covering “national security” issues such as sedition, treason and terrorism before its SAR status expires in 2047. This is, to say the least, thorny, because at the time the Basic Law was drafted, everyone knew what the Chinese govt counts as sedition and treason (i.e. simply saying something critical of the govt was equivalent to actively attempting to overthrow it), and that Beijing would naturally expect HK’s law to have similar criteria.
The HK govt first introduced an Article 23 bill in 2003. The response from the HK public was 500,000 people marching on the street to oppose it. The HK govt backed off and didn't bring the matter up again.
Now, in 2020, national security legislation is back, mainly because Beijing (and Carrie Lam, and her crew) have said that it’s the only way to put an end to the protests.
That’s not even remotely true, but it’s the only solution Beijing is interested in because that’s how they handle it on the mainland, and frankly they’re sick of our crap and want to out the fear of God into us. And with HK’s pro-Beijing majority in the Legislative Council not having a big enough majority to railroad legislation through locally, Beijing has evidently decided to bypass LegCo and enact national-security laws here by adding them to Annex III of the Basic Law. HK still has to pass its own national security law under Article 23, but in the meantime, the laws under Annex III will do nicely.
The vote is expected next week.
And so, what then?
I don't know. A lot depends on the details, but there’s no real reason to be optimistic when you loOk at the broader context in which all this is happening. Carrie Lam and her henchmen were just on TV telling us (and the world) that there’s nothing to worry about: we’re still a totally free and open society, and One Country Two Systems will remain completely intact after this bill is passed.
She said that about the extradition bill too.
I mean, these are the same people who just managed to get a long-running political satire program on RTHK taken off the air for the terrible crime of making fun of the police (by a comedian who used to be a police officer!), which to them is no different from actively encouraging people to hate the police. So no, I don't trust them to wield this new power responsibly or fairly.
Is it truly the end of One Country Two Systems?
It’s too soon to say definitively – I think it will continue to exist in the technical sense that HK will still be considered a semi-autonomous region that gets to plan its own economy and have its own version of democracy, etc. But it will be run the way Beijing tells them to run it – and Beijing will be a lot more proactive in doing just that. In terms of free speech, human rights and civil liberties, the HK system may be a separate system, but it will be a system nearly identical to the mainland system, rendering the term another meaningless catch-phrase for Beijing’s foreign ministry spokespeople and the CE to throw around when they respond to international criticism, like “hegemony” and “rule of law”.
How will protesters react?
There’s a march planned for Sunday that the police will almost certainly ban, and will beat up and arrest anyone who tries (as well as anyone who happens to be near anyone who tries, the media and innocent bystanders included). Beyond that, I don’t know. My sense is that the protest movement overall won’t give up – the fact that Beijing is resorting to this shows that the protests has truly rattled the CCP. So stopping now would be a waste of all the effort put in so far.
But they aren’t crazy about another year of sucking tear gas in nightly street fights with riot police either, not least because they know it’s a futile gesture anyway. I’ve heard they’re looking for alternative resistance action plans.
On the other hand, if they feel they truly have nothing to lose, maybe they’ll go out swinging. In which the police would be delighted to accommodate them.
Either way, it seems 2047 has indeed come early.
For more information:
Read this Vox explainer.
Read also this mildly hopeful commentary from Stephen Vines.
The other shoe,
This is dF
I have time now. So:
I’ve been mildly amused by comments from people – even people who hate Trump – who don’t get what the big deal is over Trump phoning up Taiwan as though they were an independent sovereign country and not a part of China.
I’ve been hearing this one for years from Americans who don’t understand the One China Policy primarily because, for all intents and appearances, Taiwan is functionally separate from China – it has its own govt, its own economic system, its own army. It’s a separate damn country, why not just say so? Why are we appeasing a Damn Commie dictatorship by pretending something is real when it’s clearly not? Call a spade a spade! GIMME THE STRAIGHT TALK! POLITICAL CORRECTNESS SUCKS! AND BY THE WAY I’LL CALL ANYONE I DAMN WELL WANNA CALL AND WHO THE FUCK IS CHINA TO TELL ME WHO I CAN AND CAN’T TALK ON THE PHONE WITH WHENEVER I WANT THIS IS A FREE FUCKING COUNTRY AND CHINA CAN GO FUCK ITSELF IF IT DOESN’T LIKE IT AND WANTS TO LIVE IN ITS LITTLE PRETEND WORLD –
I’m paraphrasing. More or less. But that’s the general gist.
And of course, all of this is technically true. The extent to which it matters depends on to the extent you think that diplomacy is an important component of international relations.
You can argue that China lives in a little fantasy world where Taiwan never actually left China. One could also argue that the people who think we should call China openly on its bullshit live in their own fantasy world where there are no consequences for breaching established diplomatic protocols in a global economy – especially when dealing with countries who own nukes and who you owe $1.1 trillion.
For those of us who live in the real world, yes, diplomacy does matter in foreign relations – at least if you want to get anywhere near a negotiating table. Trump can talk all he wants about using the One China policy as a bargaining chip for a better trade deal – it won't do him much good if China refuses to talk to him out of sheer spite.
This is not to say that the One China policy is sustainable, by the way. Foreign policy experts have been saying for awhile now that while the One China policy made diplomatic sense in 1979 (at which time the pro-China KMT party – which has always supported the idea that Taiwan is still technically part of China – had a solid and consistent grip on power), the democratic situation in Taiwan has shifted significantly enough that it’s becoming more and more difficult for everyone – even China – to maintain that particular fiction.
Foreign Policy has a good write-up on this. I recommend reading it. It was written before Trump was a nominee, but it illustrates the problem clearly. It’s a long-term play that will take creative diplomacy and finesse to pull off so that everyone benefits without losing face.
And that’s the problem, of course: Trump does not do finesse. He’s demonstrated repeatedly that the word arguably does not exist in his emotional vocabulary. He evidently plans to run America the way he runs his companies on TV – like a flamboyant tough-talking businessman. It’s possible he made/took the call with President Tsai without understanding the diplomatic brouhaha it would cause. It’s possible he didn’t care. Either way, he’s managed to antagonize the one country that rivals America as a superpower through sheer thoughtlessness and/or idiocy.
And he’s not even actually POTUS yet.
FUN FACT: For the record, Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, is chairwoman of the Democratic Progressive Party (which also took control of parliament in the election that she won). That’s the opposition party to the KMT that – very much unlike the KMT – has typically advocated stronger independence for Taiwan. Beijing, as you can imagine, HATES the DPP with a vengeance. So you can imagine how they felt about Trump having a friendly phoner with Tsai, regardless of who called who.
Hold the line,
This is dF
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