The people of Hong Kong have spoken
And they are voting for pro-democracy candidates:
Pro-democracy candidates appear to have made major gains in Hong Kong’s district council elections, as early results trickled in Monday morning, with multiple high-profile pro-government figures losing their seats.
More than 2.9 million people turned out to vote in Sunday’s elections, which have been framed as a de facto referendum on the almost six months of ongoing protests in the semi-autonomous Chinese city. With more than 95% of constituencies declared, pro-democracy candidates appeared to have won a landslide victory.
Speaking to CNN, Kenneth Chan, an expert on politics and governance at Hong Kong Baptist University, said the more than 70% turnout — higher than any other election in the city’s history — “exceeded many predictions” and demonstrated both Hong Kongers’ commitment to democracy and that they are “counting on this election to point a way out of this impasse.”
A way out of the impasse? I wish that were true, but I don’t buy it. There’s this, for example:
China’s government has responded to a stunning landslide victory for pro-democracy candidates in the Hong Kong elections by emphasising that the city will always be ruled from Beijing, and warning against further protest violence.
The foreign minister, Wang Yi, warned against “attempts to disrupt Hong Kong”, as a few hundred people took to the streets again in support of protesters holed up in a university that has been under siege by police for over a week.
“No matter how the situation in Hong Kong changes, it is very clear that Hong Kong is a part of Chinese territory,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Tokyo. “Any attempts to disrupt Hong Kong or undermine its stability and prosperity will not succeed.”
They feel they can’t afford to lose Hong Kong. The only questions are how far they are willing to go to keep it, and how far the protesters are willing to go – as well as whether the police and/or military will continue to do the bidding of China or whether they will decide to cast their lot with the demonstrators (I see no sign of the latter, but I certainly don’t have any inside track on that).
More here:
The election results pose a dilemma for Beijing, and Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam. Hand-picked to rule by party leaders, Lam always insists she rules independently, but is widely accepted to have coordinated her hardline response to protesters with China’s top leadership.
Before the vote, Lam often claimed she had the support of a “silent majority”, as she escalated the police response to protests, invoked sweeping colonial-era emergency powers, and ruled out meeting any of the protesters’ main demands.
That argument was clearly untenable after pro-government candidates were swept from power across the city, holding on to barely one in 10 seats on district councils. Nearly 3 million ballots were cast; both in absolute numbers and in turnout rates it was the biggest exercise in democratic participation that Hong Kong has seen.
However, the district councils don’t really have much power:
There will be few immediate political consequences in Hong Kong because the councils have limited powers, only a small budget and a mandate restricted to hyper-local issues such as parks, bus stops and waste collection.
But these local election victories may sow the seeds of greater long-term influence for democrats, because the councils play a role in choosing the city’s chief executive and some legislators.
Stay tuned.
The People’s Liberation Army will turn Hong Kong into a smoking pile of rubble if that is the order. They’ll simply make sure that the troops sent are not from Hong Kong or the surrounding provinces. So they’ll have little sympathy, and less after some indoctrination that the Kongers are anti-revolutionary reactionaries.
Pray ’em if you got ’em.
Beijing is really in a pickle here. They desperately need the income from Hong Kong because Trump’s tariffs have seriously hurt their economic growth.
They would like to really clamp down on the protesters, like in Tienanmen, but suspect that might cause serious capital flight and reduce or possibly even destroy Hong Kong’s economy.
A clampdown with significant injuries, which is the only kind that would be effective, would probably also bring serious international condemnation which could cause capital flight from China proper.
So they are on the horns of a perfect dilemma thanks to Trump and the protesters.
I’m sure they’re praying, to whatever gods the communists pray, for Impeachment to take over the news worldwide and allow them to do whatever they like with very little press.
Democrats, as usual, are playing right into our enemies hands. They couldn’t be more helpful to China if China was paying and directing them.
Sickening. FWIW, may the PRC’s regime (and apparatchiks) leave off behaving like a bunch of rabid, ravening lions.
After all is said and done, Xi and the Party will put ideology before economic considerations. If the protests continue and escalate and Xi and the Party conclude that the situation has devolved into a stark choice between Hong Kong’s destruction and a de facto independent Hong Kong… there is simply no doubt as to what they will do.
Totalitarian ideologues do not allow those they perceive as weaker to permanently defy them. They see defiance of their rule as an anathema.
Irv,
Well, the PRC is paying off and directing some within the DNC. How many are colluding with the regime of Xi is anybody’s guess. We do know the Bidens have been ‘gifted’ by the Chinese.
Hong Kong, this year, is a LOT more important to China than anything that was being risked 30 years.
Losing the future is sad, but always uncertain. China’s economy, and the materialist econ growth for the middle class over the last 30 years has been stupendous. “Benign Dictatorship” — the most effective form of gov’t.
But as the Party members got richer, the dependence on exports has been increasing. One theory was that allowing commie China into WTO would make them liberalize. Gradually. This theory has been proven false. China has not been liberalizing. However, to a large extent they have continued with a form of meritocracy, far more merit-oriented and “competitive” than the Soviets were.
They have created of a huge “middle class” (world standards), perhaps the most middle class people in the world,
Another theory has said China’s been lying with its econ statistics, and is hugely in a debt-boon, and is ready for a huge bust. This theory has been popular for many years, already. Longer than the time between Greenspan’s late ’96 “irrational exuberance” warning of a stock market drop and the big post Year 2000 dot.com bubble pop.
Another theory recalls The Great Leap Forward, and The Cultural Revolution, and the huge internal commie-killing that went on. With predictions for some kind of recurrence, tho expecting it with an econ-bust. Not yet.
China’s rich exporters, whose capital has been funding the big boom that’s been going on for 4 decades, those exporters might be morally willing to kill millions (of people), but are financially afraid of world sanctions and losing billions (of USD or renminbi or yuan).
I think most folk should try to guess about what will happen – noting that it’s a guess, and often NOT what one wants. What I want is for true democracy in Hong Kong and the Chinese to treat it more separately, but don’t believe that’s in the cards at all.
My guess is that the Chinese will try to disappear all the “leaders” it can identify, individually. For the next few months. With more funding for those who are more China friendly, and more gov’t opposition to those who are less China friendly. Including being tougher in schools, and expelling more “trouble makers”.
Hong Kong is more like a ’68 Prague Spring, than yet an ’89 Tear Down the Wall. And the Chinese surveillance state will become more oppressive and effective.
I’d love to be wrong with more democracy sooner.
I fear I’m wrong with mass murder right away.
FWIW, I’m a long-term expat in Asia, much of it spent based in Hong Kong.
This election was a massive FU to CCP and the local Quisling ‘Elite’ Cloud People who have sold the Hong Kong Dirt People down the river in a way which should be familiar to anyone fully awake in a Western ‘Democracy’ these days. Except worse. Because CCP/China.
These District Councils for which elections were held have zero real power and are at best consultative. They are also the *only* elections which are not massively gerrymandered. Interestingly also First Past the Post – I suspect first thing that the government will now do is attempt to change this before next elections 4 years later.
There were, of course, a lot of CCP United Front dirty tricks on election day: people arriving to vote and finding that they had already voted, bus loads of obvious mainlanders showing up to vote, massive bribing of the elderly with free transport, free gifts, and so on. It’s also well-established that employees of state owned enterprises are required to photograph their completed ballots inside voting booth and message them to their bosses. This kind of thing is not even news here. It’s Dog Bits Man stuff.
Anyway, massive loss for CCP and various Beijing Correspondents yesterday were reporting that their contacts were telling them that there were lots of meetings in Beijing yesterday morning and everybody surprised because they were high on their own supply and really believed that some ‘Silent Majority’ would vote for them. Usual problem in totalitarian states of everybody reporting up the chain what their superiors want to hear.
Big question is what happens next. Pretty much zero reaction from the Hong Kong Government and Police (I mention them separately because de facto they no longer answer to local executive civilian control and are taking orders from CCP shadow government) yesterday because they’re all waiting for instructions from Beijing. Beijing is doubtless trying to figure out who to blame/purge and just how vicious should be the punishment meted out to the Hongkies for daring to be different.
Interesting Times.
Zaphod: I hope you post more here.
In the 21st century China represents the most serious totalitarian future we face. China is doing the recon work on harnessing digital tech to that end — a cellphone stamping on a human face forever.
I’m not liking it at all.
Tom Grey:
Re Disappearing Leaders.. There are clearly MSS death squads roaming around pruning link nodes in the social graph + any identifiable ‘front line fighters’. There has been a huge spike in the ‘suicide’ statistics since July. The standard way of offing oneself in Hong Kong is to jump off one’s apartment building. Everyone is familiar with Hong Kong and will know that tall apartment buildings abound here. Interestingly there has also been a similarly large spike in dead bodies showing up in the sea. Nearly all of these case are young people. It’s not coincidence. It’s also the kind of thing that won’t make front page of any Western Media because ‘fact checkers’.
Police are calling them obvious suicides, not doing proper crime scene investigations, no Coroner’s Court investigations.
Easy to find crowd sourced reporting backing this up on twitter / reddit / LIHKG (forum).
Re HK’s financial importance to China. Put very bluntly, Hong Kong is the money laundering centre for the CCP Elite. China has capital controls for little people. Big Guys do it perfectly legally with the help of some of the smartest and best paid bankers and lawyers in the world. The amount of money sloshing about here is mind-boggling. Any idea that Shanghai will replace Hong Kong as financial capital of China is delusional. For a start, this would give too much power to the Shanghai Faction of the CCP (CCP only looks monolithic from the outside… inside various regional mafias fight each other for dominance).
Interesting Times.
OT: I also think Trump is being very smart by targeting trade. People who understand these things well (not me) reckon that the only thing propping up China’s dodgy banking system is their Current Account. Say what one will about Trump, he has the killer instinct and is going for their jugular.
Hong Kong is the money laundering centre for the CCP Elite.
As I understand it, part of the San Francisco real estate boom is hot money from China.
This is a good article on how CCP is attempting to manage situation:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-protests-shenzhen-exclusive-idUSKBN1Y000P
Do not be shocked at how far Bejing might go. Authoritarian governments have shown an astonishing proclivity for killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. They also know that they can weather the storm of criticism from the international community.
Their calculation is that if they look weak on HK, it could easily lead to uprisings in other provinces.
Interesting discussion. And thanks, Zaphod, for your comments.
I don’t think CCP ideology has much to do with the situation — if China were still ruled by an emperor, I think the situation would be pretty much the same. Generally, face would triumph over practicality — but in this case, as Zaphod pointed out, Hong Kong is the money laundering capital of China. If the billionaires/CCP leaders — the same people in many cases — go to Xi and say, “Uh-uh, no way, Jose,” I think he would have to cancel a full-scale Tianimen square-type assault. Question is, will they?
China *is* ruled by an Emperor for Life: Emperor Xi Jinping. Shanghai is ruled by the Duke of Shanghai (Whoever currently Shanghai Party Secretary is… note I did not say current Shanghai *Mayor*)… Ditto each of the other Tier 1 Cities and then all the provinces. And so on down to the local Squirearchy. These are not (yet) perfectly hereditary — and probably cannot become so — but the same families pop up all the time. Mao was a right evil bastard, but one of his more honest stated reasons for kicking off the Cultural Revolution was because he saw this tendency arising as early as the early 60s.
Ignore the Nomenclature. Look at what they do, not what they say.
As for Ideology, It’s Complicated. Deep down, guys at the top are pure pragmatists. Xi Jinping cannot just ‘retire’. So, in theory, at least, they are not Ideologues at all. However, to *get* to the top they needed to study and spout all the necessary in-group signaling CCP Boilerplate from the time they were very young until they finally found themselves sitting around Politburo conference table with feet shakily planted on necks of pyramid of 1.4B Chinese. And now let me introduce you to our mutual acquaintances, Mister Saphir and Mister Whorf…. *this* is where the pure pragmatism assumption becomes a bit messy.
Unlikely anything that looks similar to Tiananmen Square (and surrounds) Massacre. Protesters are not really into set piece occupations of territory… May just be a long war of attrition. The main worry CCP has is that dissent will spread from Hong Kong to other cities in China. So far appears zero chance of this. Mainland Brainwashing is so good that nearly 100% of mainland students who study *overseas* remain extremely nationalistic (which is 100% associated in their minds with CCP rule). And frankly there are plenty of good arguments to be made against representative democracy — which we won’t get into here — believe me they get to hear them all.
And now let me introduce you to our mutual acquaintances, Mister Saphir and Mister Whorf…. *this* is where the pure pragmatism assumption becomes a bit messy.
Zaphod: I don’t think I’ve been in a conversation where the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis came up since the seventies.
Your point then is that the CCP leadership is pragmatic *and* has also been shaped by the language of constant Communist propaganda they’ve imprinted since they were children. Brainwashing.
Interesting idea about “a long war of attrition.”
I guess part of what I’m getting at is when rubber hits the road under conditions of stresses and constraints, these guys are going to automatically revert to specific dialectical modes of reasoning. The kind not good for Kulaks, or non-Lysenkoists.
Also when things get messy, vultures start circling at the top of the power pyramid. What better time then to clothe oneself in the Orthodoxies which are given at best only lip service when life is smooth and sunny?
See Winnie the Pooh on CCTV News wearing suit = Happy Days.
Pooh Bear in Mao Jacket = Someone is about to get the book thrown at him.
Pooh in Camo = We know he musta been binge watching Duck Dynasty.
Irv on November 25, 2019 at 4:24 pm said:
…
Democrats, as usual, are playing right into our enemies hands. They couldn’t be more helpful to China if China was paying and directing them.
* * *
What Parker and Huxley said.
Also this (new)
https://bigleaguepolitics.com/exposed-chinese-spy-reveals-communist-partys-intelligence-operations-abroad/
and this (old) (compare and contrast the messaging)
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/feinstein-chinese-spy/
https://www.ammoland.com/2019/01/no-investigation-senator-feinsteins-chinese-spy/
Balanced but sceptical of the “nothing to see here” media non-reports.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/weekly-standard/the-spy-who-drove-her-dianne-feinstein-and-chinese-espionage
Zaphod
Mainland Brainwashing is so good that nearly 100% of mainland students who study *overseas* remain extremely nationalistic (which is 100% associated in their minds with CCP rule).
That is also my impression, based on what I have read. Australia comes to mind. That wasn’t the case 30 years ago, when I knew a lot of Chinese students studying overseas.
huxley on November 25, 2019 at 4:16 pm said:
Pray ’em if you got ’em.
until 2021.