Echoes of Tiananmen Square: Hong Kong Protests Test CCP Resolve

Thirty years after the Tiananmen Square protests, the Chinese government faces another serious democratic challenge. Rather than affecting the capital Beijing, or even the mainland for that matter, this latest threat has arisen in Hong Kong. Police officials in the former British territory are warning that the rule of law is now on the ‘brink of total collapse’ after five months of demonstrations.

Protesters have marched along main streets in masks and set-up roadblocks

There are similarities in the origins and development of the Tiananmen Square and Hong Kong protests. In 1989, rapid economic development was creating a rapidly changing society in China, without any accompanying political representation for the people. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was paramount, corruption was rife and any dissent stifled. In Hong Kong, a province returned to China by Britain in 1997, a sense of political regression has overtaken the minds of many citizens accustomed to a greater degree of autonomy than on the mainland.

The concept of ‘One Country, Two Systems’ that the CCP has espoused since the return of Hong Kong has been steadily eroded, with freedom of expression and of the press increasingly undermined in the Xi Jinping era. There is little doubt amongst many of the protesters; China wants to subsume Hong Kong entirely and the 2019 outburst builds upon the pro-democracy Umbrella Revolution of 2014.

Many leaders of Hong Kong’s 2014 Umbrella Revolution were imprisoned

Whilst murmurings of discontent were audible for months, or even years, before the two protests, a single event helped trigger a spillover into the streets. In 1989 it was the death of Hu Yaobang, widely seen as a pro-reform former General Secretary of the CCP. His ousting from his role in 1987 had angered followers and his funeral drew 100,000 supporters to the streets who demanded that his legacy be upheld.

In Hong Kong, a proposal to allow the extradition of criminal suspects to the mainland was perceived as a direct attack on democracy and precipitated the first large-scale protests since 2014. It has since been scrapped by the government, a decision made too late to reverse the zeitgeist.

In both cases, students have been at the forefront of the calls for change. In both cases, resentment of political reform (too slow for the Tiananmen Square protesters and in the wrong direction for those in Hong Kong) mutated into demands for a democratic revolution. The international media has dedicated hours of coverage and thousands of column inches to the Hong Kong protests, as with Tiananmen. In both instances, many members of the international community have refrained from outright condemnation of the Chinese response, whilst remaining expectant and desirous of political upheaval in Beijing.

Student protesters on Tiananmen Square in 1989

Perhaps most significant, and a question that as yet remains unanswered, is whether the Hong Kong protests will end the same way as Tiananmen. After a month of huge gatherings in the capital, and numerous other demonstrations across the country, June 1989 saw an open massacre in front of the world’s cameras.

Tensions are being raised in Hong Kong and protesters have died, some in cold blood. But they have died at the hands of the police and counter-protesters, not the military which, despite some veiled threats, has remained conspicuously absent from the island. At what point, if any, will Beijing deem such a drastic scenario as mobilising the People’s Liberation Army necessary?

A protester is shot with a live round by a member of the Hong Kong police

One thing about the aftermath of 1989 is likely to be repeated in Hong Kong, whenever the situation finally cools. The CCP will not change course, particularly under Xi. Economic stagnation may be on the horizon but despite the Hong Kong inferno there are no reports of mass protests anywhere on the mainland. As long as the illusion of prosperity continues to beckon for the masses, Xi and his quasi-Maoist personality cult will charge forth. What China’s neighbours and global competitors think of the whole thing is irrelevant to the President.

The CCP’s resolve is undoubtedly being tested in Hong Kong. Yet unlike with Tiananmen Square, Beijing will still see this as a localised threat, albeit one that cannot be allowed to spread like wildfire. The ability to restrict access to information in a manner even George Orwell could never have predicted aids Xi’s case and it may just be that the CCP eases back on its aim of drawing Hong Kong fully into the compliant Chinese fold.

More trying days lie ahead both for the protesters and the Party. However, don’t expect any tanks rumbling down the streets of Hong Kong just yet. Beijing learnt at least one invaluable lesson from 1989.

The iconic image of 1989

From Desolate Backwater to Economic Powerhouse: Hong Kong, the thorn in Beijing’s side

If there is to be a challenge to the supremacy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’, it would be a good bet to suggest that its origin will be in Hong Kong.

Since being returned to Beijing in 1997, the vibrant economy at China’s southern periphery has seen its relative freedoms stifled by an increasingly interfering party apparatus, with political appointments now being vetted directly from the capital.

The erosion of Hong Kong’s political rights culminated in the Umbrella Movement in 2014, in which Joshua Wong became the face of hope for democracy in China.

Thousands poured onto the streets of Hong Kong in 2014 as part of the pro-democracy Umbrella Movement

With a GDP per capita ranked at an impressive 8th in the world, coupled with a proactive civil society fostered under British rule, it is little wonder that Hong Kong at times seems destined to pursue a development separate from the mainland.

In theory, this is exactly what should happen. When the British ceded sovereignty to China just over 20 years ago, Beijing agreed to a ‘One Country, Two Systems’ principle which would leave untouched Hong Kong’s capitalist economy and way of life for at least half-a-century. That the reality has been somewhat different only heightens the chances of serious unrest in the ‘autonomous territory’, unrest that could spread far and wide given the right political and economic climate.

All of this is a far cry from when Hong Kong was subsumed into the British imperial fold, after the conclusion of the First Opium War in 1842. At the time, Hong Kong was nothing but a ‘desolate, rocky region, frequented by pirates and a few fishermen’. (Woodhead, 1945)

This 1846 Ordnance Survey map – shortly after the British takeover – depicts the stark desolation of Kowloon, now home to the Hong Kong metropolis

Quickly becoming an important port and trading station, Hong Kong was formally leased to Britain for 99 years in 1898. This proved a propitious move for it meant that Hong Kong was freed from, to quote Sun Yat-Sen, ‘a rule of unequivocal seclusion and tyranny’ that defined the dying years of the Qing Dynasty.

The famed Chinese nationalist Sun claimed to have gained his revolutionary ideas from Hong Kong, an ‘intellectual birthplace’ separate from the ‘oppressed’ government of the mainland.

Sun Yat-Sen, often seen as the Father of modern China

Certainly the ‘rule of law, the maintenance of peace and order, and the absence of a customs tariff’ propelled Hong Kong’s development. At the 1921-22 Washington Conference – convened amongst other things to decide upon the future of the Chinese territories leased to foreign powers – Arthur Balfour of the British delegation hailed one of his country’s prized possessions:

The position of the British colony of Hong Kong in the world’s trade is unique, and without parallel. It is a free port except for a duty on wines and spirits; it has relatively few important industries; it is one of the greatest shipping centers in the world; it is the distributing point for all the enormous trade of south China, and about thirty percent of the entire foreign commerce of China. The conditions of Hong Kong in its relations to commerce are in every way excellent.

Yet by the 1930s Hong Kong was still little more than a fragment of what it was destined to become, ‘the barren pirate stronghold’ not yet eradicated. The Japanese occupation in World War Two (WWII) – following the British surrender on Christmas Day 1941 – brought with it the plunder and brutality that typified the advance of Emperor Hirohito’s zealous forces, abruptly postponing any further advancement.

Indeed, one need only look at the topographic mutilation of Hong Kong to understand its rate of progress in the second half of the 20th century. The traditional grid pattern of single-storey buildings interspersed with areas of open space has made way for a concrete metropolis, where skyscrapers tower above the choking highways, casting a shadow on the pedestrians beneath.

Left: Kowloon in 1935 (Source: NCAP) Right: Kowloon in 2017 (Google Earth)

Hong Kong’s impressive economic development was not, however, accompanied by an equal expansion of political and civic freedoms. Indeed, the British refrained from encouraging or allowing participation politics, belatedly introducing some democratic reforms only when their century-long lease was drawing to a close.

Still, compared with the communist mainland Hong Kong seemed an oasis of free expression and representation on exiting the British yoke. That the British have failed to press the CCP on honouring the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ mantra originally promulgated by Deng Xiaoping is a disappointment. It places a stain on an otherwise remarkable achievement; turning a provincial backwater into a prosperous financial centre complete with a world-famous stock exchange, in the process improving the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.

That Hong Kong’s population fought for democratic concessions from the British, and had seemingly secured them with the 1997 transfer agreement to CCP overlordship, naturally engendered optimism. This has only made Beijing’s crackdown the more frustrating, even if the most sober observer would admit an air of inevitability about the whole thing.

The return of Hong Kong to Chinese rule was marked by a lavish handover ceremony on 1st July 1997

Some have argued that there are unique set of ‘Asian Values’ that advocate order, authority and economic stability over democracy, universal rights and political representation. Even if one buys into this contentious argument, the most recent generational change in Hong Kong has raised the spectre of a new threat to the status quo, and an uplifting of the heavy boot of the CCP.

Beijing’s crackdown on ‘dissent’ continues apace. Joshua Wong has just received a second prison sentence relating to his role in the pro-democracy movement in 2014. Simultaneously, stories have emerged of the kidnapping of Gui Minhai – a dual Chinese-Swedish citizen and Hong Kong based publisher of controversial books about CCP leaders – purportedly by agents of the state.

So, the seed of Hong Kong’s autonomy is bearing decreasing quantities of fruit, and Beijing’s promise of fifty years of minimal interference apparently disregarded in its entirety.

Joshua Wong: part of a generation unwilling to defer to Beijing’s wants

The youthful, energised and well-educated generation that comprise Hong Kong’s millennials will not stand for it. For every charismatic leader that is stifled, like Joshua Wong, more are ready and willing to assume responsibility for leading the fight for the autonomy promised by both the British and Beijing.

It would be wise of the CCP not to enrage this slumbering political leviathan, otherwise a whole new type of piratical venture will be emerging from China’s southern shores.

Sources

Beeson, M. Regionalism & Globalization in East Asia: Politics, Security & Economic Development (2007)

Calder, K.E. & Fukuyama, F. (eds.), East Asian Multilateralism: Prospects for Regional Stability (2008)

Woodhead, H.G.W. ‘Shanghai and Hong Kong: a British View’ (Foreign Affairs, January 1945)