If the protest violence continues in Hong Kong, the only winners are Beijing and one-party rule
- The violence in Hong Kong benefits Beijing and its narrative that one-party rule is the basis of prosperity. Beijing’s curtailing of Hong Kong’s most important institutions has helped foment the current crisis, but violence is not the solution
A 65-year-old man who has lived abroad for many years could relate to Hongkongers marching to defend their rights. But all his understanding and support melted away in the face of video footage of the gratuitous violence in the city.
Young people share a similar concern about chaos, not because they fear the re-emergence of the violence of the Mao era, of which they know almost nothing, but because they accept the party’s argument that its emphasis on political order is the driver of their current economic well-being.
When they look at Hong Kong and the ongoing economic downturn, they accept the argument that they must curb their own desire for greater freedom and democracy if they want their lives to keep improving.
Democracies manage this tension between social chaos and state control through a host of mediating institutions, such as free and fair elections, a real parliament that has policymaking capabilities, an independent judiciary that has the teeth to challenge the state and the police, and many other trappings of constitutional democracy, such as freedoms of speech and assembly.
China’s leaders, particularly since the mid-2000s, have worked assiduously to prevent the emergence of civil society organisations and the mediating political and legal institutions which are anathema to Beijing’s monopoly on power.
So what are the incentives today for Beijing to directly shut down the protests in Hong Kong? I would argue that a well-developed and smoothly functioning political system in this city threatens Communist Party rule much more than the current unrest: hence its desire to push Hong Kong closer to “one country” and undermine the positive features of “two systems”.
A Hong Kong with a vibrant democracy and a thriving economy would be a direct challenge to the party and its justification for one-party rule. But when we in Hong Kong reject our own institutions and the rule of law, and resort to extralegal behaviour, the only real winner is the leadership in the North.
David Zweig is director of Transnational China Consulting Limited and editor of US-China Energy Triangles: Resource Diplomacy under Hegemony