Looking back, we can piece together ways that past choices impact the present. Sometimes choice – impact pairing is direct; other times less so. And while we might identify a set up for future problems, we can’t know how those problems will be expressed. A current example is from Hong Kong.
Hong Kong is in the news again in a sad way. Protesters marched multiple times in opposition to a proposed extradition to China law. In a city of seven million, the turnout was incredible. One protest march had as many as one million and another perhaps two million people. Police fired tear gas, rubber bullets, and beanbag rounds. There is pressure on the Chief Executive to resign. And all this is happening within the greater context of the China – US Trade War.
But if Hong Kong is part of China, why is there even the need for an extradition law?
The situation in Hong Kong is more complicated than that and had many contributing events.
Here’s a short list.
The Long Windup
How did past events in Hong Kong, including protests, lead to the current situation?
2003 – 2014. In 2003 there was a large protest during the first Chief Executive’s term. Protesters opposed an anti-sedition bill which carried life imprisonment for treason, sedition, state secret theft, and subversion. Later protests included those of the Umbrella Movement (protesting China’s decision not to allow full universal suffrage by 2017 in Hong Kong, counter expectations in the Basic Law), the Occupy Movement (which had international counterparts), and Scholarism (student-led protests against the pro-communism / anti-democracy “Moral and National Education” requirement). Imprisonments. Hong Kong people may have become even more disillusioned in their ability to impact government policy.
All this in the context of mixed feelings about how “Chinese” Hong Kong people are, what patriotism means to them, and how they react to change.
Post Handover, July 1, 1997. For a while, not as much changed as expected. Some newspaper editors lost their jobs, but overall, people who were going to move assets and gain additional national citizenship had already done so.
1992 to June 30, 1997. Peaceful protests leading up to the Handover when Britain was to return Hong Kong to China. (Why was there a Handover in the first place? See the 1841 bullet point below.)
In 1992 Hong Kong’s last Governor, Chris Patton, drew criticism by trying to take steps to bring some level of democracy to Hong Kong. Critics said “after 150 years of colonialism, why now?”
“In 150 years, the country that now poses as an exemplar of democracy gave our Hong Kong compatriots not one single day of it. Only in the 15 years before the 1997 handover did the British colonial government reveal their “secret” longing to put Hong Kong on the road to democracy…, creating a not inconsiderable gulf between the mainland and Hong Kong. Yet it was only after the handover—and thanks to none other than the Chinese central government’s diligence—that Hong Kong could begin to hope that within just two decades it would get to elect its chief executive through universal suffrage. Who has the real democracy, and who has the fake democracy—compare the two and judge.” — from People’s Daily
That quote turned out to be false (see other points).
1989. Tiananmen Square incident / massacre / protests. Initially hopeful, later dreadful. With the Hong Kong Handover eight years away, many looked for residence overseas. 1.5 million march in Hong Kong.
1982 – 84. UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher negotiates the Hong Kong Handover with Deng Xiaoping. Afterward she falls on the steps exiting the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. The proposed Basic Law develops the concept of “One Country, Two Systems” — 50 years of no political change. Stress is put on developing a peaceful transition.
1950s – 1960s. UK secretly moves to make Hong Kong a democracy but faces a strong counter reaction from China. How different things might have turned out.
After the 1949 Chinese Civil War, Nationalist refugees fled to Hong Kong and built a squatter village at Rennie’s Mill (Tiu Geng Leng). When I visited there throughout the 1990s, Taiwanese flags flew prominently. Shortly before the Handover, the village was demolished and inhabitants resettled, mostly in a few new apartment buildings nearby. Many other economic and political refugees flee to Hong Kong during the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution.
Pro-Communist riots and bombings take place in the late 1960s.
Late 1800s, early 1900s. Hong Kong overtakes Portugal’s colony Macao as the place to be in the South China Sea. That deep harbor and British power make a difference.
1841. A weak Qing Dynasty unable to defend itself cedes Hong Kong to the British after the first Opium War. Opium had already been present in China for hundreds of years but in the face of a growing addict population and government bans, the British fought two wars for the right to sell opium in China. So Hong Kong’s colonial history has a problematic start.
Why was there a Handover in the first place? History. Post WWII, only a small number of colonies remained anywhere. Hong Kong was still a British colony in 1997 for a number of reasons. First, while other colonies became independent, Hong Kong was unusual in that it was handed over (or handed back) to another country.
While China ceded Hong Kong island and later Kowloon to the UK in perpetuity in 1842, other parts of the colony — the New Territories — were actually a 99-year lease, expiring in 1997.
Handing over only part of the colony would have caused chaos and the idea of doing so was not seriously considered. Who had any idea that China’s Qing empire would soon fall, then be replaced by a short-lived Republic, and then a Communist state after a civil war? Who had any idea that European empires, which became common (and at the time seemed normal) in the 1700s and 1800s would later dissolve (and seem barbaric) by the 1900s?
Current Impact
Some might sum up the last 30 or so years in Hong Kong with a central theme of political loss. The China extradition law felt like yet another thing being taken away, against expectations.
People will react against a failure to live up to expectations.
That’s especially true in a place like Hong Kong, where population density, a life mostly lived out of the (tiny) home, and cause combine to bring crowds together. Crowded situations that I would have exited elsewhere (whether transport, restaurants, or crossing the street) are normal and peaceful there. Those physical inputs alone generate an ability to protest unlike most other places.
In the 2019 China extradition law marches, protesters learned how to neutralize a tear gas canister (douse it with water and capture it under a hardhat), how to erect barricades (use twist-ties and cover sharp metal edges), how to protect themselves from identification (wear masks, turn off phone location monitoring, buy transport tickets with cash). Of the government/police and protester sides, only the protesters effectively told their story publicly.
It didn’t help that the Hong Kong police force had trained in China’s Xinjiang Province.
The government and police side will likely catch up with their own new techniques.
The situation still seemed dire. But then something unexpected happened. The Hong Kong government backed down (as of time of writing). When I checked in with friends in Hong Kong less than week earlier, no one expected this. The English translations are more charitable than the original Chinese and so there is a lot of doubt over the actual outcome.
Consider
- “One Country, Two Systems” in Hong Kong (and Macao) was supposed to show Taiwan that unifying with China would be beneficial. That has not happened. When a decision is irreversible and you can watch the example of others, the last one to join should pause. Serious discussion of Taiwan – PRC unification will stop for years.
- China will suffer even more public opinion fallout from the way the Hong Kong government handled the extradition law.
- Actions can train people for a lack of trust in the system.
- Extreme acts create opportunities that train protesters in new techniques. Police and government techniques will improve as a result, even if the improvement is in the form of public opinion management.
- China may choose to wait out the next 28 years of the Basic Law, or part of it.
- Kierkegaard’s quote “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards” applies to places as well as people.