I would argue that Beijing didn't anticipate the resolve of the protestors, but they would certainly know about and endorse Lam's backdown.
China is happy to play the long game - they apply pressure to HK to bring them inline with China, people protest, they back of a little, but not all the way. They wait ... then apply pressure again. The idea is that by 2047 when the 'one country, two systems' arrangement expires, HK will fully accept the China way of life. Lam backing down is an easy way to defuse the situation for now and they can try again later.
I expect to see this cycle of peace, then protest, then peace again continue for years - each time, HK will lose a few more rights they used to have.
The real reason for their backdown is that Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act in US will be likely to pass. This bill will punish HK official for violating human right. And potentially forbidden the use of financial services like Visa and Mastercard.
However, it's not even a real backdown though. She just announce to start a motion to backdown, but it was still the decision of parliament to withdraw the bill, and the parliament was controlled by pro-Beijing parties. Practically even pro-Beijing parties care the voter's view so it may withdraw the bill, but it was uncertain whether there were an order from Beijing to vote down withdrawal after the protest was over, so still many uncertainty right here. Not to mention police brutality was not addressed.
Forbidding VISA and Mastercard doesn’t sound like a good idea. Wouldn’t that lead to people using WeChat/AliPay which is controlled by the Chinese government?
It’s been an effective method of sanctioning individuals and organizations so far. WeChat and Alipay isn’t worth a damn outside of PRC, and sanctioning a handful of pro-Beijing individuals isn’t likely to change that. Truth is, the United States still dominates the global financial infrastructure and being cut off from that is a difficult pill for most to swallow.
I guess. But what would the average citizen use? Cash? Seems likely that somebody would step in to be the de facto online transaction provider. And the government probably would want some way to financially tie HK to the mainland.
> Same story everywhere - nothing much changed after the Arab spring protests, for example.
Except in Tunisia, which is the one success story from that time period. It's now a functioning democracy. Of course the real test is how it does over the long term, but at least so far it's an example of real change in the region.
There was a street seller who was so distressed by the economic conditions and especially the petty corruption that he publicly set himself on fire.
Almost a decade later, possibly the cops on the beat shakedown situation has improved but general man on the street economic conditions are not improved in Tunisia. It is not apparently (yet) a success story.
Then what does produce democracies? There are a bunch of those about at the moment and, while some of them are faux democracies installed by freedom-loving-america there are several legitimate democracies - were they all voluntary transitions initiated by the former monarchs?
Democracies come about more often from gradualist reforms than from revolutions. Revolutions have a distinct tendency - though obviously this is not a hard rule - to produce strongman governments whose primary claim to legitimacy is that they ended the chaos of the revolution.
Well we just stood around until the UK imploded, and they told us we were off on our own haha. Canada rode the wave of deconialization that, it could be argued, began when the UK lost Hong Kong to Japan in WWII. Losing HK to Japan showed the empire could no longer defend its colonies and the bubble popped. It’ll be a while before we find out if such a strategy is effective in the PRC.
I mean, we still celebrate July 1st as Canada Day. I like to joke that it’s “Dependence Day” since it celebrates the signing of the British North America Act, which, and I’m paraphrasing here, says “this whole Queen thing is working for us let’s keep it going.” As compared to the Declaration of Independence, which, well, you know the rest.
First sentence: "The Velvet Revolution or Gentle Revolution was a non-violent transition of power in what was then Czechoslovakia, occurring from 17 November to 29 December 1989.
When I say that "Revolutions don't produce democracies", I'm talking about violent revolutions. A "non violent revolution" is a contradiction on terms to me.
> That was an utter and complete failure in every sense of the word.
No, if it was a failure the previous system and people would have remained in power. Though some did, there was an irrefutable change - whatever qualms one might have with the new regime.
> And in any case the reasons behind it had nothing to do with a desire for democracy
Each person has their reasons. The Group of Nine would certainly disagree with your claim.
The American Revolution shouldn't be considered as a revolution. It was a bunch of organized polities that broke their political ties, but largely preserved their political, economic, and social structures and organized leadership. It was successful in no small part because it was a rebellion rather than a revolution.
> but largely preserved their political, economic, and social structures and organized leadership
TIL we coronated King George Washington I and established yet another divine monarchy.
I mean sure, the colonies ended up directly translating to states, and (some of) those colonies happened to have bicameral legislatures with a lower house consisting of elected representatives, but that's about where the similarities between the colonies and resulting states end. Any existing leadership that continued to lead during/after the revolution did so by democratic rather than autocratic means.
> it was a rebellion rather than a revolution.
Those terms are not mutually exclusive. It was a revolution implemented by rebelling against the British Crown.
The colonies weren't day-to-day governed from London or directly by Parliament. It may be worth recalling that colonies had their own governments, many of which included elected legislatures. In fact, how these legislative bodies were treated was a rather specific point of complaint in the Declaration of Independence.
> It may be worth recalling that colonies had their own governments, many of which included elected legislatures
I mentioned this already in my comment, but to clarify/reiterate:
- Governors (AFAICT) were not democratically elected (they were - if I recall correctly - appointed by the Crown, as was standard for colonial governments)
- The only democratically elected legislators (in the colonies that even had legislatures) were in the Lower House of each colony; the governor typically (if not always) appointed the Upper House's legislators himself (reflecting British Parliament and its House of Commons v. House of Lords, respectively)
Very different from how things operate post-Revolution, what with democratically-elected governors and state senators. If any of the former colonial leadership prevailed as the new state leadership, it was by democratic rather than autocratic means.
This is perhaps nothing but my own opinion, but what you're describing sounds a great deal like removing a higher polity while preserving most of the political structures. I understand that some opinions may reasonably differ on the subject.
Just because the political structures are similar doesn't mean their composition is similar, which is more what I'm getting at.
Definitely fair to draw comparisons, though; you're right that there are structural similarities on a state and federal level to the old colonial and imperial governments (respectively). My argument is that how the legislators and executives of those governments are appointed (i.e. democratically v. autocratically) is the big change, and one that would make the American Independence movement more of a revolution; the polities themselves were outright replaced, at least nominally, as the existing polities were rooted in the Crown's authority.
Contrast this with Canada or Australia, where (last I checked) the British monarch is still formally the head of state despite them being sovereign nations with independent governments and separate heads of government. I suspect that's closer to what you're envisioning (i.e. colonial governments continuing to exist as-is after gaining political sovereignty).
> Just because the political structures are similar doesn't mean their composition is similar, which is more what I'm getting at.
You're absolutely correct!
In case I was unclear eariler, I was strictly addressing questions of structure. Please accept my sincere apologies for my failure to make my self clear.
It's all good! It's definitely a useful comparison to draw, since it's a critical piece of the puzzle on how "Western" government has evolved over the centuries in that gradual migration from absolute monarchies to democracies. It's always interesting to identify and examine those vestiges of governments old in their modern descendants, in the same way that wings, flippers, and arms can be so similar in structure yet so different in application :)
The status quo. You’re condemning men for maintaining the status quo in order to agree on something going forward on a handful of issues when every other word was essentially revolutionary.
This is prior to the Article I branch of government, Congress, abdicating much of its power and creating this myth of coequal branches of government, and when House districts were a lot smaller, and you and your neighbors has to decide between yourselves who was in charge of certain functions of keeping society going. You know, who was going to be the local Sheriff, who was going to run the local court, who was going to deliver the mail and so on. Many of these jobs were boring and without glory, but someone had to do them.
Had Madison’s Virginia Plan been implemented in full and the Connecticut Compromise wasn’t implemented, it would likely have been more democratic still.
Structurally, the United States constitution is overwhelmingly democratic, and especially for the time it was written and ratified. If it has grown less democratic at all, it is due to factors the signers and ratifiers of the Constitution could never have predicted that occurred in the 230 years since. No one could have foreseen Congress would abdicate much of it’s power and responsibilities in the 20th Century, or that the Industrial Revolution would lead to the single greatest explosion of the human population in history, or that we would choose to let in so many foreigners. Nobody thought each House member would be representing a district in the hundreds of thousands at a time when they thought one House member per 50K might be too few.
Is it democratic? Oh yes. It is the most democratic document of its time, and few legal documents written since then could plausibly claim to be more so.
Democracy was created in Ancient Greece, so it may or may not surprise you to learn Democracy itself isn't anything you'd call democracy in 2019 either, as they were a "slave state" also and not everyone actually had the right to vote (in fact women couldn't vote, own/inherit land)...so maybe post Revolutionary America was a lot closer to Democracy than you think...but either way its a Republican form of Government (at least according to the Constitution) not a democracy.
I am using "democracy" as a synonym for "liberal democracy."
If you tell me about a country that:
- Has a beautiful founding document that ensures what we'd recognize as basic rights of all citizens
- Has a well-designed federal system that empowers individuals and lower-level governments at the expense of the federal,
- Has hundreds of thousands of enslaved people who form the foundation of their economy and are indeed bred into captivity,
I would never, ever call that a democracy. The first two don't matter when the third is true, to me. If you would, that's fine; you wouldn't be objectively wrong.
>If you would, that's fine; you wouldn't be objectively wrong.
I call the US a Constitutional Republic, where the representatives are elected through various implementations of the democratic process.
Otherwise, I'm just highlighting the fact that the "inventors" of democracy had slaves just the same as the US (among other limitations on who had voting rights) at the time of the Revolutionary War/Independence.
In some respects slavery was an inherited evil of the new US Constitutional Republic, an evil which the Constitutional Republic was unable to abolish through law/voting/representatives (as evidenced by half of the country attempting to secede rather than honor the law) and instead resulted in a war to maintain the Union and enforcement of the law through use of arms. Unfortunately, democracy/liberal democracy/Constitutional Republic whatever we call it, it was not effective an abolishing slavery with the stroke of a pen and instead threatened to breakup the very form of government which was only maintained through the most deadly war the Country has ever fought (in fact deadlier than every other US war combined).
It begins to become a slippery slope when laws at the end of a gun, whether or not those laws are morally correct.
This is only somewhat correct. Following the Revolution, some northern states abolished slavery almost immediately and the bulk of the North eliminated slavery by ~1810.
In the South, though, inventions like the cotton gin, westward expansion into the Mississippi river basin, and logistical improvements like steamships brought about significant expansion in the South's slave economy. British slavery (particularly in the Caribbean) was more focused on sugar production. Slavery in the United States was distinct from slavery in the British Empire, the fact that the former used to be part of the British empire notwithstanding.
Nope, it's a pretty common term that springs from the fact that the gentry in question were such entirely due to their land holdings - there was no need to pursue outside wealth since their share of their tenant's earnings could support them entirely.
Well, when a society is ready for democracy, removing the old regime can produce democracy.
If it's a domestic dictatorship, it will usually evolve into a democracy on its own.
If it's a foreign power oppressing an inherently democratic nation, a revolution might have good results. This is one way to think of the American Revolution, as well as the Eastern European liberation.
You should read up on the French Revolution. It led to phenomenal amounts of tyranny and war. The small flickers of democracy were soon extinguished.
I don't know if the French Revolution is a good example. It certainly didn't produce a stable democracy. The First Republic quickly turned into an empire, and they didn't get a long-lasting democracy until the Third Republic in 1870, about 80 years after the Revolution.
It is difficult to portray the French Revolution as a successful democratic revolution with a straight face. The result was chaos, terror, death, and then Napoleon.
Napoleon was, to put it somewhat mildly, not much of a democrat.
It works in our countries too. Try to pass a terrible bill. Get rejected. Try again. Rejected. Again. Again. Again. They only have to get it through once, since laws are very rarely removed, only added.
I also notice trend of adding some ridiculous/controversial paragraphs to the bill that you can "give up" later. When people are tired after first couple of rejections and general public is annoyed by same bill being constantly mentioned, new one gets thrown into the spotlight and latter one passes without much attention.
It has bothered me for decades that this seems to be a 'bug' in the design of the US government system. ~500 people whose job is to create new laws. 9 people who can effectively remove them (SCOTUS), and who have a very limited schedule. Plus if they are ever too busy and pass on hearing a case because others are more pressing, that immediately cements the law into place and establishes it as having 'survived Supreme Court challenge' since refusing to hear is equivalent to accepting the lower court ruling and establishes it as precedent. I do not see how you can run a system with ~500 'inputs' and 9 low-flow 'outputs' for a long time without resulting in an overflow of oppressive tyranny.
Congress should generally be removing laws, SCOTUS based law invalidation is sort of the last chance removal and ideally wouldn't happen very often, it should be reserved for cases where laws are internally inconsistent (and thus inapplicable) or are trying to invalidly overrule laws that require a stronger majority to change (to prevent constitutional amendments from being passed as regular laws just 'cause).
I think the intent of SCOTUS was originally to decipher laws into a workable framework - given that some laws could potentially interact weirdly with decade or century old laws... and to help highlight incongruities in laws that law makers may have overlooked during their original writing in an effort to spur congress to correct said law.
This is a "bug" in human civilization (hopefully not human nature). We by and large as a species, tend to favor new shiny over maintenance activity. Whether it is tech debt, infrastructure debt, or legislative debt, the task of re-factoring, editing and cleaning up the existing is always given short shrift by overall human organizations, and the more political they are the more pronounced this behavior.
This is especially challenging when cleaned-up platforms are immediately seized upon by parasitic short-term political animals to bodge on quick wins that they successfully trumpet as solely due to their leadership, and the claim works on the stakeholders. This is a problem as our civilization grows larger and more complex. Sustaining the ever-increasing complexity requires the biological equivalent of continuously performing the grunt work cleaning up the free radicals that are making the system inefficient, and re-asserting not just repaired core DNA, but an expressed DNA adapted to changed conditions.
Hong Kong needs people in the PRC to start demanding their own representation. The CCP has might, but not enough to take on the Chinese people a second time. You can't be a people's republic if the people didn't vote for you.
Is this sarcasm? While no authoritarian government can exist with no consent of the government, the PRC has no legal vehicle for citizens to disagree with the state.
Well to paraphase, governments are people too.. most middle class folks in China are nominally CCP members themselves.. operationally CCP maps to a corporation in org chart then a democracy of course..
> Every single day in China, depending on which statistic from the Chinese government is used, an average of 16 to 76 people are placed into the new liuzhi detention system and, by definition, disappeared.
[..]
> For decades, the Chinese Communist Party’s powerful anti-graft watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), used the shuanggui detention system to hold suspects for up to six months without charge. Enforcers were not answerable to any state laws. The use of shuanggui has been a strictly internal affair for the members of the CCP, it is completely separate from the state or judicial system. The meant that the normal protections afforded to those detained within the judicial system and rights, such as access to legal counsel, were not available to shuanggui detainees. Once in these facilities, you have no right to have your family informed of your whereabouts. You simply disappeared.
> At the National People’s Congress in March 2018, China introduced a constitutional amendment to establish the National Supervision Commission (NSC), based on the new National Supervision Law (NSL), effectively replacing shuanggui with liuzhi. In practical terms, the biggest change was the NSC has authority over not just the 90 million or so CCP members but state employees and anyone working for an organization that manages public affairs or is involved in public affairs in any manner, right down to the village level. The style of Investigation and detention, despite the change in name, remain the same.
One thing you do have to realize is, the Chinese are very good at keeping up the appearances.
While there are local elections, there's usually no right to stand for elections. These so-called elections, generally has only 1 candidate, or a few that are all communist members, with pretty much the same views. "Elections" where people can't stand to be elected freely are not elections, they are just some elaborate ceremony to rubber-stamp government official appointments.
that is unfortunate, it seems anywhere you go people try to subvert democracy (to different degrees of success)... i guess that’s why they call it “eternal vigilance”
More people wanted HRC, though. That's how elections work. It doesn't mean the loser is unpopular or broadly disliked. It means there's another candidate voters like better (or dislike less).
Laws. Traditions. Elections have always been managed on a state-by-state basis in the US, which is why my nice competent Minnesota that runs excellent elections is held hostage on a national level by borderline banana republics like Ohio and Florida, where ballot boxes out of the back of someone's car are considered normal.
It’s easy to bash the DNC’s joint fundraising agreement with Clinton, or the leaked emails showing that DNC staffers were supportive of Clinton and frustrated by Sanders. The DNC is meant to be a neutral presence in party primaries, and even minor deviations from that position are affronts.
The harder question in the larger one: What role should party elites play in primaries? It wasn’t that long ago, after all, that they fully decided primaries, meeting in smoky back rooms during the political conventions to hash out the next nominee. Before 2016, the reigning political science theory of primaries was called “the party decides,” and it argued that political elites still largely decided party primaries, albeit through influencing voters rather than controlling convention delegates."
I think it is quite obvious that the DNC did everything in their power to get rid of Sanders and put HRC into position. The problem was that she was unelectable and many Bernie voters just decided that Trump will be a better president than HRC (and many unfortunate other things, like HRC's popularity went down after every public appearance, all the left leaning social media declared HRC president, etc.).
If you cannot vote for a different party that doesn’t share the values of the CCP, and can’t form one yourself, elections are meaningless rubber stamps.
You don't need parties to have elections, just like how elections within a single community or organization don't have political parties, just candidates and fractions (voters/executives with different opinions).
As for the values of the CCP, consider them like the Constitution in the US or the values of the "founding fathers". People don't get to change those either in any direct democratic way (but through a slow, ideological and legal process).
Besides, 1 party vs 2 parties alternating seems hardly much of a difference...
Of course you don’t need parties to hold elections, that’s not what I said. I said they become meaningless rubber stamps since all the different factions are curated by the party establishment to the best of their abilities making any challenge to the establishment at best painfully slow (as in people have to be replaced through death or expulsuon for any blockage to stop) and at worst impossible.
I’m not talking about changing the constitution or policy in a direct democratic way, changing them in a representative way through Western style democracy would be a vast improvement. Because the constitutions of Western governments still leave a lot of political room to manouver, such as taxation. In the US, stuff like that was left out of the constitution because the founding fathers knew they didn’t have all the answers, no one does. Especially not the CCP. Instead, things like basic human rights such as the right to not get locked up and brainwashed because of your religion is enshrined in the constitutions of Western style democracies because unlike taxation or government ownership of enterprises that is really important to make sure all individuals matter.
And yes, changing the constitution is very slow, but if you have a multitude of differences with the government and the majority population, you can still progress politically and change one thing about the constitution where you do find common ground if you’re a competent politician. That’s far faster, more efficient and meritocratic than having to share the vast majority of policy with just one arbitrary party leadership to even be elligeble to run.
All of these advantages are still present even with a two party system, but I prefer the multiparty, parliamentary system we have here in the Nordic countries.
1) In America, I can just decide to run for office. Especially at the local to state level, independent candidates can be totally viable. Random everyday people cannot run for office in China. The party selects candidates to stand for election, and they generally run unopposed, or opposed by someone who is nearly a perfect mirror on policy.
2) In America, I can run on values that are against the Constitution or the founding fathers. How many people run on platforms of curtailing or amending the second amendment? You see that all the way up to candidates running for the Presidency. You will not see candidates run on policies that are opposite of the CCP in China.
One party that controls which candidates can run means they are effectively just appointing people to positions, while giving the illusion of choice or citizen impact on elections. There's a lot about the US system of representative democracy that could be justly criticized and would be improved by reform, but acting like it is even remotely similar to China is absurd.
Although it's nothing like China, by what means can the average citizen in the UK, for example, raise an issue if their representative is of another party? Example: I care about issue x, but the people I live around don't. So I create a petition on the parliament petition website. Just like every other petition to date (to my knowledge) no change comes about because of it. How can I, as an individual citizen, disagree? Some philosophers of democracy argue that voting isn't worth the cost of actually voting, since your vote is unlikely to make a change in the first place.
You can run for office. If you find no parties that share any of your values, form one.
You can raise the issue in the media which would pressure the government. You would probably not get kidnapped while on vacation in Thailand, and then get locked up without a trial and a forced confession through torture, just for criticizing the UK government.
If it's something that affects an entire class of people, such as a certain profession, you could organize something like a labor strike or a protest.
And if all else fails, you could actually just break an existing law you think is unfair. You would get an actual trial administered by an independent justice system where you get to defend your actions, you can then argue that the law is unfair and restricted your life in a cruel way. Sadly, it had to come to measures like this for LGBT rights to improve in the UK.
You also mentioned "but the people I live around don't". In China it wouldn't matter if everyone around you care about the issue, something will only happen if the CCP deems it necessary.
> PRC has no legal vehicle for citizens to disagree with the state.
Yes that's true. There should be one. People in Beijing and Shanghai and everywhere else deserve leaders that actually represent them too. Do you think otherwise?
Can I join the party if I fundamentally do not agree with its values? Such as, I think the party should have absolutely no control over the army, the judicial process, the selection of ministers, influence over state controlled media and many, many other presumably big points of contention?
Because in the West you can form a party even if you fundamentally disagree with the parties already in power. If you go back a few decades the green parties and the nationalistic parties as we know them today didn't exist in most of Europe and were formed as reactions to feeling of the government not sharing the same fundamental values.
>As impressive as they are, how long can Hong Kong people keep up this level of protests? Beijing can keep the pressure forever and play the long game
As long as they have food, water and the will to fight. They can play the long game too if they are so inclined. Eventually the CCP will get tired of the expensive, resource sucking bridge to nowhere. Sure, China could carpet bomb HK but the more you destroy it the less it's worth and the harder it is to justify involvement.
But the question is how far are both sides willing to go with the violence?
The further the CCP goes the more they risk deepening the resolve of your opponent (especially with a highly united population as in the case in HK). So far it appears that all escalations have done just that. The crux of the issue is that the people of HK do not want to be ruled over by the iron fisted CCP that drives tanks on people. Any escalation by the CCP confirms to the people of HK that the CCP is in fact the iron fisted CCP that drives tanks on people, not the new friendly CCP that does not drive tanks on people. So what does the CCP do then? They either back down or try to up the violence hoping it'll be too much for them. By upping the violence the CCP is gambling that they draw throw in the towel before HK does. At some point (only recognizable in hindsight) the line between protests/riot and open revolt will be crossed. Beyond that point it's fundamentally a gamble that a strong majority of people in HK would rather accept subjugation than die. Since this is somewhat an existential issue for them they may very well choose the latter. How does the CCP "win" against that? People who accept that they are probably going to die resisting are un-govern-able. Your soldiers can patrol the streets and they will still take pot-shots at you. Every time you get one another will pop up. There is no way to "win" against that unless your definition of "win" includes complete eradication. The only historical occurrence I can think of where a people who had resigned to death wound up surrendering involved strong central leadership telling them to surrender.
Obviously it's a shit situation no matter how you look at it with outcomes ranging from bad to worse in the short and medium term.
China relocated millions of urban youth to country side reeducation camps during the cultural revolution. If push comes to shove, it's well within the capability of the CPC to relocate the problem population in HK. The fact is, Beijing has not used any physical levers yet.
China's cultural revolution occurred at a very different time geopolitically. Currently, China is attempting to establish itself as the new bipolar alternative to the United States.
This cascades into a lot of different things, but ultimately collapses down into trust. Just as the Cold War did.
Counterparties and potential allies are less likely to ally themselves with you, if they see you're intractable even with your own people. What does that say about how you would treat an ally or trading partner?
Furthermore, China is also attempting to integrate itself into the existing multinational trading and governance frameworks. That depends on votes from non-Chinese-controlled sovereign states. Being an international pariah makes that a lot more difficult.
Additionally (although somewhat tangentially), China would really like Taiwan back without having to invade it. It doesn't matter much in the global scheme of things, but it's been a splinter in the CCP's claim to legitimacy and supremacy ever since it was created as an independent government.
Oppressing Hong Kong makes peaceful Taiwanese reunification increasingly unlikely. On a decades / generations time-frame.
My reply was merely to address that China has extreme but "bloodless" options of dealing with HK protesters.
As for political trust, difference in values and great power security competition with US means the west is broadly not going to trust China regardless. China's revisionist vision for existing framework is to pivot away from rules and values (that benefit the west) and focus on mutually beneficial development. It's an extension of old ASEAN tributary philosophy, get rich, try not to meddle in other's internal affairs. And I think the lack of response on XinJiang means that pivot is working. Regardless, Chinese trade-GDP is only 18% (~14% accounting foreign value-add), it has not been an export economy since late 2000s, apart from select strategic products like airplane engines and silicon, China can survive without Western trade.
I think the real issue is Taiwan, and on that front the damage has already been done, which is the real loss to CPC. China wants Taiwan by 2050, I think HK removed cultural reunification off the table. There's only economics or war now which is concerning.
Nobody is doubting they can. It's whether or not they will. It's not 1960 anymore. Nobody in the west back then was gonna complain if the commies were starving themselves. China is also more connected with the world than before and on some level there's expectations of following certain behavioral norms that come with that. It's a fine line between "solving the problem" and getting slapped with sanctions that materially affect mainlander's lives and make them question why they even care about Hong Kong.
There's no good way out at this point. Somebody is gonna lose.
Normally I would attribute cold technocrat calculations to Beijing as well, but circumstance is dramatically different as of 10 days ago. Xi just scored "people's leader" on August 25th, announced they will not appease HK protesters a few days later, domestic nationalism as been endorsed and cultivated (extremely rare for HK / internal matters), 70th anniversary is on October 1st. I don't think Xi is going to start his first month as people's leader capitulating to HK when the mainland is already at a frenzy. There's a reason CPC doesn't usually play the nationalism card, it's extremely hard to walk back.
The 1967 riots were instigated by Maoists in an attempt to topple British rule. It had nothing to do with "local people". Recall that it happened during the Cultural Revolution.
If it wants the people to be friendly, it should probably start pumping a lot more money into jobs programs, addressing income inequality, and building a helluva lot of housing.
Happy people don't protest as frequently. People who feel they have dim future prospects do.
That's what Tung Chee-Hwa tried to do as the first beijing friendly chief executive. Beijing can't decide what the legco votes for (since the functional constituency is by definition allocated to the local oligarchy who prefer to keep the status quo of focusing on wealth management, private banking than building productive, middle-class-geared economies).
I agree and I find it kind of ironic that those so-called communists turned out to be more nationalist than the nationalists who are now the liberals of Taiwan.
This is what I find the missing perspective in the coverage of this issue, I think instead of any hard actions, Chinese Govt is likely to just wait, perhaps for years and see the protests lose steam, while doing a few cursory measures to dissipate the protests. There is no sense of urgency the Government is showing towards tackling the protests.
If you want to see a really, really brutal version of this.
Go look at how Stalin did the Collectivisation in Russia.
There were multiple slowdowns and removal of some of the harshest demands, but after a couple of months or years they came back, sometimes this happened multiple times. The amount of violence was also regulated up and down.
That said, the opposition defiantly helped, and in the End even Stalin did not get close to as far as he had hopped to get.
China is happy to play the long game - they apply pressure to HK to bring them inline with China, people protest, they back of a little, but not all the way. They wait ... then apply pressure again. The idea is that by 2047 when the 'one country, two systems' arrangement expires, HK will fully accept the China way of life. Lam backing down is an easy way to defuse the situation for now and they can try again later.
I expect to see this cycle of peace, then protest, then peace again continue for years - each time, HK will lose a few more rights they used to have.