One country, one defiant peninsula

I’ve always been quite proud that I don’t have a problem with tropical climates and don’t mind living in such areas. Sure, you sweat a lot and need repellent if you sit outside at night, but on the other hand there’s beautiful, lush vegetation, you don’t need to worry about what kind of clothes you wear at night (it’s always t-shirt and shorts) and it’s simply more lively outside in places where temperatures never become uncomfortable. And if the sun is beaming down around midday and it’s becoming unbearable, just go somewhere inside, air-conditioning is present everywhere.

This time I misjudged my robustness against the constant switching between sweat-inducing humidity and cold air blowing right at me in the office and at home, resulting in a sizable two week cold that reliably returned whenever I thought it was over. As a consequence, I didn’t really do a lot besides reading, cooking and trying my best to work. Just kidding, dumb as I am I of course didn’t limit my activities, which didn’t help nursing the cold. Particularly going to Hongkong for a weekend two weeks ago wasn’t the smartest move. My lifestlye in Guangzhou is quite structured and healthy, not to say mature, but Hongkong offers two things I can’t resist: An amazing nightlife and friends willing to explore it with me. More generally, the reason I like going to Hongkong so much is because it has many amenities I’m missing in China, like good bread, an international flair or free internet.

I just upload these pictures so that this text doesn't look too bulky and also to show
that Hongkong is more than the Victoria Harbour skyline

If you don’t live under a rock, you read about the enormous and ongoing protests in the city meant to preserve those freedoms. Or wasn’t it because of some extradition bill? Or because Hongkong has become a playground for the global financial elite, rendering owning your own apartment nothing but a pipe dream for average inhabitants? Or because the CIA incited demonstrations that flared up? (Well ok the last one is laughable unless you exclusively consume news within the Chinese internet). There’s some confusion and unclarities about the goal and motivation of the movement, so I’ll offer just the right amount of information for you to appear in the know for your next geopolitical dispute at a house party.

Why did it start?

In short, because of the extradition bill. That bill would’ve allowed the Hongkong jurisdiction to extradite felons who committed crimes in either Taiwan, Macao or Mainland China back to those places, if the crime is punishable with 3 or more years in prison by local law. The fear of the protesters and a large share of the general public was that this law would allow the Mainland jurisdiction to come up with fabricated accusations and evidence to have political opponents delivered to its doorstep. Though this fear is certainly justified, a financial markets insider told me that the priority of the Communist Party was never to silence the few publishers and intellectuals criticizing it from across the border (it does that anyways when they’re becoming too vexatious, applying abductions or intimidation tactics), but to get a hold of the riches that Mainlanders – many of them from the Party – funneled to their country’s quasi domestic tax haven. A lot of that money was accumulated through corruption and given Xi’s pledge to eradicate it from the party, officials parking their black money a few kilometers of Mainland China’s border can be seen as a challenge to the government’s authority. Needless to say this is unacceptable. I can’t appraise how true this is, but it makes a lot of sense and definitely deserves being mentioned.

Funny side note: The fig leaf to provide a case for the necessity of the law came from Taiwan out of all places. The precedent was that of a guy murdering his girlfriend in Taiwan before fleeing to Hongkong to escape prosecution. The Taiwanese government didn’t want to play the devil’s advocate though and from the outset maintained that it wouldn’t request extradition even if the law was passed and besides didn’t think the bill was a smart move.

Hongkong’s city government had to learn this the hard way as protests didn’t stop but instead grew ever larger. I don’t think anyone saw coming the scale and intensity of the movement against the extradition bill. But of course, while that might have been the spark that lit up protests, the underlying causes are more complex and varied.

What else is behind those protests?

First of all, most likely not the CIA. Apparently these ridiculous accusations against evil foreign forces still work as a propaganda tactic. Hongkong, as the more liberal, open small brother to the Mainland is the perfect canvas to project those conspiracy theories. Another one implies that police in Hongkong can’t effectively control the “riots” (Chinese media approved term) because the Hongkong judiciary is full of foreign judges who are blinded by their sympathy for pro-Western protesters and hand out unjustly harsh sentences to those that attack them. Matter of fact, what makes Hongkong so successful is its independent, international body of judges among others. If its judges were as patriotic and bound to Chinese unity and harmony as people seem to wish, international business would seek a quick way out of that place (the business community too voiced grave concern over the extradition bill, fearing for Hongkong’s ability to make business with China without being restrained by Chinese law).

It’s not a conspiracy theory that economic problems laid the groundwork for the demonstration’s most ardent supporters – the youth. The city’s ultra-liberal economy made it rich, but now the repercussions are felt. The government missed its chance to protect its normal citizens from the side effects of an unregulated housing market with heaps of global capital flowing in – the result is an apartment the size of a German living room for the rent of a pretty family-sized flat in central Munich. Unless your family already owns property you can either live with your parents forever or rent for a hole in the wall will suck up your income. That is, if you have an income. As the Mainland’s universities become better, their graduates can compete for jobs in Hongkong that were previously distributed among homegrown talent. Quite a few of the young people decide to use the one privilege they definitely still hold over Mainlanders – a passport enabling them to travel, study and work hassle-free in most parts of the world – and leave their home for good. Those that stay are often frustrated and don’t see a future for themselves and their city.

Lastly there’s also a psychological factor in play I assume. Hongkongers are used to be special among Chinese, which has to do both with their liberties and wealth. Now China is eroding those liberties while becoming rich itself. The fear of becoming just another Chinese city is palpable. Losing special privileges hurts, even more so when there’s nothing you can do about it because your competitor is like a hundred times as big as you are. Which brings us to the third questions.

Why is this going on for three months with no end in sight?

One of the answers is exactly that people know there’s nothing they can do about it. But instead of going home and just let it happen, they want to take to the streets one more, maybe the last time. Surprisingly, they have the city behind them. Average Hongkongers as well as businesspeople (in private, on the job they have to bow to the money machine that is the Mainland market) support them, at times symbolically, at times by joining the demonstrations. There have been two occasions on which the number of protesters came close to a third of the city’s population. These people are less nihilistic about the status quo than Hongkong’s youth, they mostly really just want to protect their freedoms.

Another, very profane reason the protests are not subsiding is that the city government has not given in an inch on a single of the five demands that constitute the basis for negotiations in the eyes of the movement. At this point though, the city government is merely a puppet obeying Beijing’s orders. If Carrie Lam, Hongkong’s chief governor, had any common sense and say on this matter, she would either step down or start to make concessions. However, the city government has been in a stasis for the last two months, with absolutely no proposals coming out of their mouths, only entreaties for harmony and an end to civil unrest.

To understand why China won’t let Hongkong’s administration compromise even a bit, you have to understand just how much the CCP detests displaying weakness. Stepping down and negotiating with an opponent you could easily crush and mute is as much of a display of weakness as it gets in Beijing’s worldview. The protests also touch upon a territory where the CCP would never make concessions: its ultimate authority. There are many things you can complain about, criticize and sometimes even publicly protest in China: the education system, corrupt party cadres or road congestion to name a few. What you can’t do by any means is doubting the legitimacy of the party. In other words, it’s ok to ask for reforms within the system, but not to criticize the system itself, which is what the Hongkong protesters are doing.

What is going to happen?

I have no clue and I don’t dare to make predictions. So far none of the two sides backed down and after weeks of enormous public support and peaceful protests, last weekend was the most violent so far. The police force chased protesters into a metro train, where they seemingly arbitrary started to beat up and pepper-spray people in chaotic scenes that caused an outcry. On the other hand, three men stabbed an off-duty police officer on his way home in what looks like an attempted assassination, and protesters increasingly turn towards wantonly destroying public amenities. The governments’ calculus is that the activists’ behavior will become so violent that the wider public will turn away from them (you have to keep in mind that we’re still talking about East-Asia, where stability, harmony and obedience are valued much more than in Western Europe). At that point, it will be easy to crack down on them without making any actual concessions to their demands. If this strategy won’t work, another option is to simply sit it out and hope that the protests will lose momentum, as they did in 2014 during the umbrella movement. The central government has shown surprisingly much patience so far by not interfering with its own police squads (using the people’s liberations army is – despite some assertions – out of the question as doing so would lead to major sanctions from all developed countries and cause irreparable damage to China’s diplomatic efforts), but there’s a possible deadline looming, the PRC’s 70^th birthday on the 1^st of October. Besides displaying weakness, having beautifully arranged military parades, jubilees and international conferences overshadowed by undesired side events is another thing the CCP really, really can’t stand. It’s anybody’s guess if they will be able to swallow their pride and accept that demonstrations in Hongkong will make global headlines instead of pictures celebrating 70 years of progress, harmony and socialism with Chinese characteristics.

Anyone hoping for more updates about my private life, sorry, sometimes the things happening around you are just a lot more interesting than the ones going on inside you. Next time…