How Hong Kong and Beijing can pick up the pieces after months of tumult

Fearing the loss of Hong Kong to a separatist movement fuelled by foreign interference, China is determined to act tough even if it risks alienating the man in the street
Hong Kong must secure both Beijing’s trust and international confidence, while China’s leaders need to figure out Hong Kong’s value to the nation

Anthony Cheung

Published: 8:30am, 13 Oct 2020

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On October 1 last year, when the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China was celebrated, Hong Kong experienced one of its most violent and chaotic days.

At the end of the month, the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee pledged to govern the city in strict accordance with the constitution and Basic Law and to establish a sound legal system and enforcement mechanism for safeguarding national security. That marked a major turning point for Hong Kong.

Central supervision of the local government has since been tightened and a tailor-made national security law imposed. A new era emphasising “one country” has dawned. One year on, while violent protests have somewhat subsided, the city is still in search of a solution to its political conundrum.

With the national security law, optimists hope for the end of disorder and arrival of a “second transition”, while pessimists worry about the erosion of the city’s autonomy and freedom. Such starkly opposing sentiments point to the same sad reality where past assumptions behind the “one country, two systems” framework no longer apply.

Such a framework had facilitated Hong Kong’s reunification with China’s socialist mainland in 1997 while keeping British institutional legacy almost intact. It allowed an open international hub to continue to thrive under the rule of law. An East-West hybrid well connected to the Western world was highly valued by China, and vice versa. “Two systems” was hailed as the key to a bright new future.

By extending an executive-led system from British rule, Beijing had hoped that the city would be politically stable and administratively efficient. The promise of full electoral democracy was ambiguous, thus paving the way for growing tension with a population, especially the younger generation, yearning for self-administration and local identity.

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What does ‘one country, two systems’ mean?

After two decades, “one country, two systems” is due for a midterm review, given the deteriorating state of governance.

Because of generational change and internal fission, the four main political forces that once helped hold the polity in balance – senior bureaucrats, business and professional elites, the traditional pro-Beijing “patriotic” camp and pan-democrat parties – have all been weakened. Both ends of the political spectrum have gradually been radicalised.

The government’s mishandling of the last year’s anti-extradition protests has driven the usually peaceful pro-democracy supporters and even some ordinary “bystanders” towards the side of radical protesters. Local politics has since become a vicious zero-sum game with an unpredictable mode of engagement.

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In Beijing’s eyes, the protest movement has changed in colour. Since July 1 last year, when radical protesters stormed the legislative chamber, desecrating the city emblem and displaying the old British colonial flag, the movement has posed a real challenge to the constitutional order. Violent protests with escalating anti-establishment and anti-mainland undertones were seen by mainland officials as a distortion and abuse of freedoms and the rule of law.

The fire and fury on the streets have been portrayed overseas as resistance to repression. There is much local discontent that needs to be properly addressed, yet the bridge to dialogue and reconciliation seems to have been burnt by circumstances and the lack of mutual trust and goodwill, which take time and patience to restore.

Fearing the loss of Hong Kong to a separatist movement fuelled by foreign interference, China is determined to act tough even if it risks alienating the man in the street. China may not get everything right, and international concern is understandable, but the reaction of the US and its close allies exacerbates rather than helps to ease the situation.

It sometimes borders on hypocrisy when these countries do not take violent protests on their home soil lightly and are not shy about using national security laws and every policy means to target alleged infiltration and influence by China. They seemed to apply a different standard when Spain exercised its sovereign authority to crush the Catalonian independence attempt in 2017 or when India revoked the special autonomous status of Jammu and Kashmir last year.

The US is pursuing a larger conflict with China rooted in great-power rivalry and a clash of systems. The Hong Kong protests have provided the catalyst for a complete reversal of US policy towards China and Hong Kong. US retaliatory measures, ironically, only ensure that the city’s value as an international economic hub within “one country” will diminish.

US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping take part in a welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on November 9, 2017. Hong Kong has been caught in a larger clash between the US and China. Photo: Reuters

Maybe it pays to recall the lesson after the communist victory in mainland China in 1949 when American political and diplomatic circles questioned why the US had “lost” China. Today, China hawks surrounding US President Donald Trump are driving their country into another huge gamble, risking losing China again, this time including Hong Kong.

Even The Economist, which just two years ago asserted that the West had wrongly bet on China, now takes the view that the hope for confrontation followed by capitulation is misguided and that containment won’t work. Both the US and China are too big an economic giant to fall. Their decoupling will only inflict irreparable damage on a world of growing economic interdependence, especially given the urgent need to contemplate post-Covid-19 global recovery.

Hong Kong has a valuable role to play in US-China conflict

Following four decades of extensive reform, learning from the West and Hong Kong, China has already embarked on a unique home-grown economic model driven by technology innovation and outward-looking conglomerates. The new China Inc order emphasises deeper party-state integration and a state-directed market.

Under this order, not only would Beijing be less tolerant of any deviant moves in Hong Kong threatening national interests and unity, but it also expects the city to align better with the national development goals and pay heed to central direction in strategic areas.

Luo Huining, director of the central government’s liaison office in Hong Kong, and Chief Executive Carrie Lam clink glasses as Zheng Yanxiong (far left), director of the Office for Safeguarding National Security, and former chief executives Leung Chun-ying (second from right) and Tung Chee-hwa (far right) look on during the National Day reception at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai on October 1. Photo: Nora Tam

After a tumultuous year, the clock cannot be turned back. Hong Kong can ill afford being inward-looking. Its entrepreneurial spirit and competitiveness can only thrive if it remains vibrant as an open and free city under the rule of law. Securing both Beijing’s trust and international confidence is indispensable in the process. Major protagonists have to return to their senses and begin to pick up the pieces.

Beijing has to decide if China still wants a hybrid Hong Kong able to swim in both fresh water and sea water. A new footing needs to be found in the changing context, with more pragmatism about Hong Kong’s value to the nation. A paranoid city is going nowhere. Hong Kong’s future ultimately lies in China’s. Hongkongers should make the best out of that reality.

Anthony Cheung is research chair professor of public administration at the Education University of Hong Kong and a former secretary for transport and housing (2012-17)

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