Hong Kong is an island of freedom. We cannot just ignore what is happening there
This isn’t about the extradition bill any more. It isn’t about police brutality. It isn’t even about links between the security forces and organised crime, or about the role of Chinese agents provocateurs. It has turned, rather, into a constitutional question. Is Hong Kong truly a selfgoverning territory? Is “One Country, Two Systems” more than just a slogan? For the protesters – and for the broad mass of the population that sustains them – this is now about defending the constitutional freedoms that China promised to respect in the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration. For Beijing, the fear is that the civil disobedience might turn into a full-scale independence movement.
The issue that sparked the unrest has been all but forgotten. Back in the Eighties, when Deng Xiaoping was seeking to persuade Britain to relinquish the entire territory, rather than just that part held on a 99-year lease, he proposed a ban on extradition to mainland China as a way of reassuring the islanders. Earlier this year, in response to the murder of a Hong Kong woman in Taiwan by a Hong Kong man who fled back home, the authorities moved to close what they saw as a loophole.
Did Beijing privately tell the Hong Kong Executive to change the rules? It’s hard to say. What is clear is that the Politburo backed the extradition bill once it had been published. Hong Kongers were outraged, fearing that they might be summonsed by corrupt mainland judges on charges that would magically disappear if money changed hands. They took to the streets in vast numbers: more than a million out of a population of just over seven million. On the day that the bill was due to be presented, protesters carrying Britishera flags surrounded the legislature.
Two days later, on June 14, Hong Kong’s Chief Executive, Carrie Lam, announced that the bill was being indefinitely suspended. But, by now, the demonstrators’ blood was up. They wanted the bill formally withdrawn, not just shelved. They wanted an independent inquiry into police abuses. They wanted more democracy. On June 16, two million marched.
The demonstrations were accompanied by carefully targeted acts of political violence. Private property was spared; state property was not. Agitators, employing a tactic known as “be water”, would congregate at short notice and, for example, smash the windows of a police station.
Mao wrote that “fish need water to swim in” – in other words, guerrillas depend on the passive support of the population. To the undisguised horror of China’s Communists, who value order as much as they value national unity, the demonstrators are getting such support. Owners of shopping centres are refusing to cooperate with the authorities, posting notices telling the police to stay away unless there is a 999 call. Doctors, furious at the way police have been barging into their clinics, are likewise withholding their support. Hong Kong, in short, is witnessing full-scale civil disobedience.
How has China responded? Largely, until now, with menacing gestures. Troops have been ostentatiously brought up to Shenzhen, just across the border. Official newspapers angrily (and absurdly) blame the unrest on foreign agitators. So far, though, there has been no direct use of force. The 10,000 People’s Liberation Army troops stationed in Hong Kong under the terms of the 1997 handover remain in barracks.
The unrest is causing fierce arguments within China’s leadership. Those officials who deal with security and propaganda want to bring the recalcitrant province to heel. Those responsible for economic development understand that such an intervention would be calamitous. The question was reportedly discussed at the Communist Party’s annual retreat earlier this month in the coastal resort town of Beidaihe. Many of the figures aligned with Xi Jinping, China’s current leader, are said to want a show of force, while the old guard from the Jiang and Hu eras think that deploying soldiers destroys China’s international standing.
This generational division is the true explanation for the agitation in Hong Kong. Bluntly, it is becoming harder and harder to believe that China will liberalise. When the Sino-British Joint Declaration was finalised in 1984, 2047 seemed a long way away, and there was a vague hope that, as the world became richer, China would become freer. Until recently, such optimism seemed broadly justified. But Xi’s nationalist, authoritarian and revanchist regime fills Hong Kongers with foreboding.
Still, China has so far observed the letter, if not always the spirit, of the 1984 treaty. The decisions that have prompted public resistance have come from the Hong Kong authorities, and local people know it: 71 per cent of them blame their own government, and Ms Lam’s approval ratings have plummeted to an extraordinary minus 51 per cent. What we are seeing is not so much direct coercion as what the Yale historian Timothy Snyder calls “anticipatory obedience”. Ambitious Hong Kong politicians and officials are rushing to comply with the imagined wishes of their eventual masters.
What can Britain do? We need to be realistic. China is the world’s secondlargest economy, and curtailing our commerce would hurt ordinary people in both states. Economic sanctions almost always harm the innocent and prop up the regime. Nor are micro-sanctions against individual officials an option. Unlike African kleptocrats or Russian oligarchs, few Chinese Communists have mansions in Chelsea.
That, though, does not mean that we should keep quiet. China’s actions suggest that it cares about being seen to follow the law. Its own long-term interests depend on open sea lanes, free trade and a rules-based international order. Britain should make clear that the two signatories of the 1984 accords have responsibilities, and that it expects both parties to honour them. That may not sound like much, but it is very different from the tone initially taken by President Trump, who referred to the demonstrators as “rioters” and suggested that it was up to the Chinese to resolve the issue as “Hong Kong is a part of China”.
There are signs that Beijing wants a compromise. A spokesman for China’s State Council has said that “talks on establishing an independent commission of inquiry cannot proceed while there is still violence on the streets”. To a practised Sinologist, this means: “You can have your damned inquiry, but only when you stop rioting.”
Britain should be pushing, firmly but within the bounds of diplomatic protocol, for a de-escalation, which sees the terms of the 1984 treaty honoured, allows for an investigation into abuses, upholds the primacy of the law and, at the same time, upholds the primacy of the legitimate government over street violence. Those are the principles which raised Hong Kong to the highest opulence. We owe it to the people there to defend them.
Britain should be pushing for a de-escalation, which sees the terms of the 1984 treaty honoured