An Opinion on the Hong Kong Issue

The Hong Kong protests have been going on for 4 months now, with no end in sight. What started as a peaceful protest against the extradition bill has evolved (or devolved, depending on your perspective) into an often-violent movement against Beijing. Personally, I am both confused, amused and disgusted by the once peaceful rioters.

The incident that sparked the extradition bill was the murder of pregnant Poon Hiu-wing, 20, by her boyfriend Chan Tong-kai. As crimes committed by foreign nationals are not punishable under Hong Kong law, there arose a need to amend this loophole. However, Carrie Lam (current HK Chief Executive) tried to ram the bill through, which worsened public sentiment and reinforced beliefs of the erosion of Hong Kong’s autonomy. This sparked the protests, as public opinion was once again manipulated. The origin of the bill however, was not unreasonable.

Furthermore, the Hong Kong police have been markedly restrained in the face of blatant violence by the protestors. In any other country, incidents such as violence targeting policemen and policewomen would have resulted in martial law, as the case was in Baltimore! In Hong Kong, protestors have caused grievous injuries such as slashing police officers, making bombs, doxxing police officers (who are Hong Kong citizens as well) and sending death threats to their families. Protestors/rioters have also tried to steal the guns of the officers they attacked! At this point any country would have declared martial law. However, Hong Kong’s administration is paralyzed. Under the central government’s directive, it cannot do anything, while international media sensationalizes and demonizes it. There has been surprisingly continuous media coverage of the protests in Hong Kong while the opposite has happened for the yellow shirt protests in Paris, where similar violence erupted with 11 fatalities. The restraint and conduct shown by Hong Kong’s police is admirable despite the insidious tactics used by the protestors.

I believe that the longer the riots/protests go on, the bleaker Hong Kong’s future becomes. The reason China has not intervened yet was because they know this. As violence grips the city, businesses and funds have been considering leaving the city. Retail sales have been down 23% year-on-year, tourism has been down. Goldman Sachs estimates that since the protests broke out in June about $3 billion to $4 billion has left the city for Singapore. If this continues, within 10 years, Hong Kong will have no significance left. China does not really need Hong Kong as badly as 30 years ago. The Shanghai stock exchange market has now overtaken it, while the Shenzhen one is catching up fast at #8. Hong Kong (#5) still holds an important position in the inflow of funds into China, but it is by no means essential anymore. The protestors/rioters pushing for the US to pass the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act will only accelerate this process. Foreign interference in the issues of Hong Kong is also clear, as evidenced by the photographs of protest leaders with leading Western officials and diplomats and NED (National Endowment for Democracy) funding of Hong Kong’s National Democratic Institute. This will only further incite the wrath of the mainland citizenry and government.

As an ethnic Chinese living overseas (I am not born in China, but I do identify as Chinese), I could have sympathized with the protestors had they not shown such disrespect towards their country: stamping, burning the Chinese flag, waving flags of the US and UK (by the way, Hong Kong’s citizens were NOT allowed to vote under British colonialism!), defacing the Chinese emblem, outright racist obscene slogans against their fellow countrymen. I am absolutely disgusted when I see these pictures. Chinese politics is extremely different from its western counterparts. Most of us view social and economic stability as a precursor to the extra freedoms held as sacred in the west. This culture is still held amongst many of the Chinese, mainland or overseas. Therefore the chaos in Hong Kong garners no significant Chinese sympathy.

Additionally, I do acknowledge that Hong Kong’s citizens are extremely dissatisfied with the local government. However, it has more to do with its economy and rising property prices/living costs which has turned much of the youth desperate and angry for change. However, this anger is misdirected. The tycoons, who jettisoned HK’s former Chief Executive Tung Chee Hwa’s plan to build 85,000 affordable homes a year. believing that this scheme would send property prices plummeting, public opinion turned against him and forced him to abandon his plan. Thus, the marked increase in property prices, which have risen 300% since 2003. Hong Kong’s citizens should turn their wrath towards the city’s elite, instead of the government.

Additionally, Chinese history also shapes our worldview. A hundred years of humiliation and decades of bullying by the west (the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, the full embargo led by America and constant demonisation of the Chinese government, despite it lifting 700 million people out of poverty within a century) have led to a very patriotic population that thinks itself unfairly targeted by the same West who profited as much from cheap prices as China from technology gains.

In the end, Hong Kong is China. The very first Article of the Basic Law states so. Anyone who is familiar with the Basic Law and its complexities can see that Hong Kong is an indivisible part of China. Hong Kong citizens, in my opinion, should be proud of their heritage, not try to identify themselves as distinct from Chinese people. That is how the world views us. To preserve Hong Kong’s autonomy, the best thing to do would be to prove that the ‘1 Country, 2 Systems’ principle is essential for the city’s prosperity, instead of being a recipe for disaster. The smart thing would be to convince the Chinese government that Hong Kong should be kept as a world-class tax haven (with little political cost). Showing that the extradition bill would adversely affect this would allow for the Basic Law to be extended beyond 2047. That would be a victory for most Hong Kong citizens.

Sources provided by the writer for this article are available upon request.

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