"Its people deserve the world’s admiration and support."
"Its people deserve the world’s admiration and support."
Frustrated by his country’s failure to achieve solid economic progress after almost two decades of communist rule, China’s newly installed head of state, chairman Deng Xiaoping, ordered a shift to a government based on “one country, two systems” concept. Politically, there would be no change: China would remain a communist State, with the military—the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) enforcing political orthodoxy, but the nation’s economic system would be allowed to operate along capitalistic, non-political lives. As soon as capitalistic nations—especially the making of profits, consumerism, freedom to contract and efficiency in production—began to take hold across the nation with 1.4 billion people, high economic growth began to take place. Production, employment and incomes soon surged, with the non-communistic result of private-wealth explosion and growing income disparities among the people of the Middle Kingdom.
The 1994 accord between China and the United Kingdom providing for the conversion of the British Crown’s colony into a SAR (Special Administrative Region) of China for its full re-integration into China on June 30, 2047 sought to extend the “One country, two systems” concept to Hong Kong. The “one country” was China, but the “two systems” could not be implemented just yet. The 1994 accord called for the maintenance of Hong Kong’s political and economic status quo for 50 years starting July 1, 1997. As a SAR, Hong Kong was now a part of China, but the political half of the “two systems” could not be put in place because of the accord’s provisions. A territory that has practiced British-style democracy for over a hundred years has retained its form of government—the Hong Kong legislature has been a staunch protector of the rule of law—while continuing to function as an important player on the world economic stage.
The PLA maintains a presence in Hong Kong, and from time to time there have been misunderstandings and irritations between the SAR and China arising from Hong Kong’s sensitivity regarding what it considers intrusion by Beijing into its internal affairs. As the clock has started to wind down toward the end of the 50-year transition period—the halfway mark will be in three years—the sensitivity has been growing in intensity.
The massive protests that have been staged on the streets of Hong Kong non-stop during the last four months provide a solid indication of how difficult relations between Hong Kong and Beijing are going to become as 2047 approaches. The origin of the current protest movement was the introduction in the Hong Kong Legislative Council of a bill that would allow the extradition to China of Hong Kong citizens suspected of having committed crimes. Despite weeks of protests, the Hong Kong government refused to withdraw the bill—it offered to merely shelve it. Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam has since capitulated, but still the protests are continuing. And there appears to be no indication of their ceasing anytime soon.
The protests may appear to be about a single legislative proposal that will allow China to interfere in Hong Kong’s internal affairs. But in reality they are more than that.
The protests are, in fact, a manifestation of the Hong Kong people’s rejection of the “One country, two systems” concept promoted by Beijing since Deng Xiaoping’s day. Allow the economy to bloom with the use of capitalistic concepts while the State keeps political activity under its control: that has been the governance model followed by the Beijing government within China itself and in the territories that have been returned to the Motherland.
By their protest actions, the Hong Kong people are showing that they reject the “One country, two systems” concept. They are declaring, with their feet and with their voices that their idea of “two systems” is democratic politics combined with a capitalistic economy, not communism existing alongside a capitalistic economy.
Will Xi Jinping and his fellow leaders allow Hong Kong to get away with departing from the “One country, two systems” governmental model? It’s difficult to say, given Hong Kong’s place in the world, the state of international politics and, last but not least, China’s current problems.
One thing is beyond doubt, though. Hong Kong’s people deserve the world’s admiration and support.