The Hong Kong Democracy Movement: What is the end-game after the 5 demands are met?

I have been following these demonstrations since they started but really don't know Hongkongers or mainland Chinese, the language, culture and history, well enough to get a complete understanding of the situation and people involved. I have some personal familiarity with Hongkongers and mainland Chinese but cannot and do not claim to any sort of expert. But I do have enough information to form my own views that should be at least passably cogent and what follows are the opinions and observation of someone from the outside looking in.

As an aside:

It must be noted that Hongkongers were not given a referendum so they could have a say in their own fate at the end of the British lease and colonial rule was wrong. Had the majority wanted repatriation with the PRC, then the current pro-democracy demonstrations would be invalid. You guys signed on for this and it's too late for buyer's remorse. Had they wanted independence or continue with the U.K. in some capacity or another, then there may have been a chance of getting U.N. recognition under the rights of people to self-determination or negotiation of a better deal with strict provisions with the PRC. In the least, maybe one country, two systems would have been permanent with some kind of real international enforcement mechanism. Maybe I'm just dreaming here.

As it was, Hong Kong was transferred over to PRC ownership as if one were selling a house and Hongkongers were treated as if they were nothing more than the furniture sold with the house.

Now to the point of this post.

One might view my question of what is the end-game after the Democracy movement's 5 demands would be hypothetically met with some curiosity. Would not the 5 demands be the end-game?

I don't think so. As I see it with the current one country two systems paradigm set to expire on July 1, 2047, the 5 demands if met would constitute a sort of Faustian bargain where Hongkongers would enjoy a liberal democratic society for just over the next 28 years before Mephistopheles comes to collect Hong Kong's soul in the bargain.

I don't know where Hongkongers' minds are on this whether 28 years of freedom would be just fine before being absorbed into the People's Republic of China collective and that they only want the PRC to live up to it's end of the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984. Would they be perhaps rolling the dice, reasoning that if 24 hours is a long time in politics then 28 years would be a geological epoch during which the Chinese Communist Party would meet the same fate as all the other dinosaurs and they could keep their democracy. Or do they think it possible to either extend the one country two systems thing indefinitely or perhaps try for independence.

The first possibility to me would make no sense as it would be very naive. Communists, like organized crime families, when crossed, never forgive and never forget. After it became evident through one and two million Hongkongers taking to the streets in marches and the recent council election blow-out, the CCP will view all Hongkongers as guilty and will be sure to punish the city at their earliest convenience. Hopefully the leaders and the more radical protesters will be able to emigrate before 2047 otherwise the odds are good they will be dissappeared all legal and above board unlike the Causeway Bay bookstore guys.

The communists are the sort of people who will get an enemy even if he's 95 years old, on his deathbed and minutes from a natural death. Then the commie will put a pillow over his face just to make it personal. Don't underestimate vindictiveness of leftists or how seriously communists take any challenges to their power, real or perceived.

There might be some who would claim "socialism with Chinese characteristics" would be a different sort of commie with a different outcome. I disagree as the mechanics of power and control in an authoritarian/totalitarian system are more universal. Also the socialist/communist system attracts the sort of person Spandrell at the Bloody Shovel blog refers to as biolenninists. Maybe they differ in culture but in psychological defects and immoral motivations, they are brothers under the skin. The cultural differences in this case would simply be overtones. As another aside: The Spandrell and Bloody Shovel blog reference is ironic in this case as a post he wrote about Hong Kong, well...let's just say he doesn't like Hongkongers very much. No, he really hates Hongkongers and it seems personal. Besides, it would seem that "Socialism with Chinese characteristics" is really simply "Socialism with Communist characteristics". End aside.

The second, wait 'em out possibility would be a Hail Mary pass to cheat Mephistopheles of his prize. A long shot at best but possible. This idea does have a potential and serious drawback.

In the mean time until 2047, civil unrest and demonstrations will continue as the situation becomes a stalemate or the PRC does something to definitively end it. One possibility of ending the pro-democracy movement is by relocating a significant percentage of the population of Hong Kong and spreading them throughout the mainland. For those dissidents who remain: A seat in the tiger chair and chat with the boys from the Ministry of State Security or Ministry of Public Security might be enough to convince some but for the stubborn and recalcitrant, there's always room for one more in one of the concentration camps re-education centers for naughty malcontents.

Those Hongkongers scattered throughout the empire will be replaced by more loyal mainlanders which will fundamentally change the culture of the city and also make Mandarin Chinese the primary language of the city. It's an old tried and true tactic used by the Soviets. If the reader has seen my previous posts on the civic nationalism/magic dirt fallacy/Hotel Queens, native population ethnic dilution or replacement works by atomizing the community into a series of small, competing groups. Who says Marxism isn't scientific? They just test their theories out on human beings instead of lab rats.

For the remaining malcontents who can't see the wisdom of being a slave of the State, among the loyalists will be informers working for pay or extra "good citizen" social credit points so people will either be found dead from "suicide" or mysteriously vanish into a Bermuda Triangle type thing that exists near Causeway Books.

As to independence, maybe it would be the best solution as things stand now with Hong Kong and China not seeing eye to eye but as of now that is really a long shot with an incredibly small chance of success. The CCP is not going to let go of its "all your Chinese people, anywhere on Earth, are belong to us!" over-the-top, rapaciousness and racial/ethnic chauvinist attitude. This is problematic because with a pro-democracy movement up against a totalitarian communist regime, said protesters are viewed by CCP authorities as what they're pleased to call a "color revolution". And there can be no half-measures as a revolutionary.


Donald Cavaioli

Comments on the Hong Kong Free Press Article Comparing Hong Kong to Northern Ireland

From the Hong Kong Free Press: What Hong Kong can learn from Northern Ireland: three steps to avoid 30 years of tragedy By Brian Dooley, 15 December 2019

There is at least a very superficial similarity in the broad fundamental concept of one nation annexing another people who have their own separate ethnic or even national identity but the analogies really end there. I can agree with the author that the pro-democracy demonstrations will most likely continue for many years to come but I should add only absent Beijing not taking any different actions or utilizing new tactics other than those that they already employ. Further, Dooley's description of the situation in Ireland was very superficial, almost specious, in leaving out population demographics and the history and more controversial aspects of the IRA.

It must be noted that the IRA was or still is an armed militia that can construct its own explosives with deadly results and that received funding and weapons from Irish supporters in other countries. Judging from the makeshift nature of their signs and and protective gear, the pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong have no apparent foreign funding and are not so well funded, only what they themselves can scrounge up or given by local supporters. Moreover, they have no firearms or explosives larger than a firework (assuming that was not a PRC false flag). Even the molotov cocktails (petrol bombs) are makeshift with whatever flammables are near to hand.

Comparing the pro-democracy and Demonsistos movement in Hong Kong to the IRA in Ireland may seem similar on the surface but in even a slightly closer look, it is an invalid comparison.

To break it down:
-The first point to note is that the United Kingdom is a democratic society with a free press that the government can be eventually embarrassed into conducting a legitimate investigation due to media and public pressure.

-The second point of note is that the U.K. as well as other western democracies will learn a lesson from the debacle and work to prevent it again in the future.

-The third point is that democracies are willing to negotiate and compromise with an aggrieved minority.

To compare with the People's Republic of China, on the first point, is a totalitarian government controlled by the Chinese Communist Party who refuses to admit any wrongdoing in the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations and in some quarters, whose supporters have even praised Zhao Ziyang for his admirable restraint. There will never be any honest accounting because the CCP has a sort of Papal infallibility and the same can be expected for Hong Kong. There is no free press in the PRC to question government actions, no democratic process to vote leaders out of office. The Hong Kong Police will investigate themselves and find they did nothing wrong.

As the CCP on so far only admitted making the mistake of the Cultural Revolution although more for Deng Xiaoping's political purposes, they are highly unlikely to admit any future mistakes and even if so, will not feel any shame or embarrassment over it. It's all politics and tactics.

On the second point, rule number 1: The Party and the people are one and the Party never makes mistakes, only individuals in the Party make mistakes. The CCP will either simply be more careful and handle the Hong Kong Pro Democracy demonstrations sub rosa- using informants and kidnapping people active in the movement to Beijing for trial as well as employing plants doing outrageous things to discredit the movement. Or failing that, what would stop the CCP from re-locating masses of Hongkongers throughout the mainland empire and replacing the population with loyalist mainland Chinese people. This would seem to me the most likely scenario.

Even if the PRC were to use more forceful methods, the main thing to remember is that in a one party dictatorship, the Party can do whatever it damn well pleases and doesn't give a shit what anyone or any other nation has to say about it. 1989 Tiananmen Square really didn't bother the international community all that much for all their words as they still all queued to do business with the PRC. There's no reason to believe it will be any different if the People's Liberation Army were to move in and crush the Hong Kong demonstrations.

If international economic sanctions as punishment for the PRC are what supporters want to hang their hat on, for the foreseeable future, too many western nations and corporations like PRC money way too much for any such sanctions to be anything more than symbolic gestures.

On the third point: We are not dealing with a western liberal democracy here. The CCP considers itself to be the people of China so enemies of the CCP are the enemies of the Chinese People. And enemies of the people deserve no mercy. There will be no negotiations, only submission to the will of the CCP.

In summary it would be naive and foolish to believe that the old PRC leopard has changed its spots, the "Socialism with Chinese characteristics" rhetoric as anything more than good ole "Socialism with Communist characteristics". Or rather communists taking one step backwards, allowing some semblance of state-controlled capitalism, to take two steps forward of obtaining money, technology and economic control of capitalist nations and keep the PRC from economic collapse. One would do well to recall the concept of "normalization" such as was done in Hungary in 1956. When the PRC's flirtation with "capitalism" has served its purpose, the situation will be normalized back to either direct state operated industry or a de-facto state ownership with high ranking party officials acting as CEOs of corporations. It's back to Papa Mao's old-school PRC.

A bit of a digression here but to better illustrate the nature of the PRC and that some aspects of comparison with past situations in western liberal democracies may be valid but one must avoid over-reliance on superficial comparisons as too reductionist to yield valid conclusions.


Donald Cavaioli