Re Ann Althouse blog of September 10, a few comments from me, here in Hong Kong.
Disclaimer: I may say some things below which appear to excuse actions of the Chinese Communist Party, and I certainly don’t mean them to be. I first arrived in China as a student at Peking U, in 1976, which was the fag-end of the Cultural Revolution, deep-red socialism, pak-choy socialism, rationing socialism, which experience cured me quickly of the Chardonnay socialism I’d imbibed at Uni in Australia. I’ve no love for Socialism, and no love of Xi Jinping. I’ve criticised it and him many times in the blog I’ve kept for the last 13 years. I certainly don’t want any of what I say below as seen to mitigate or excuse the excesses of Xi and his Leninist cronies.
Althouse says: “I want freedom of speech and abhor the prosecution described here”. Of course, I agree. And of course I have a “but”. Making me an instant member of Salman Rushdie’s “But Brigade”. And I really hate the But Brigade, but...
The Red Lines from Beijing were and are clear. They have been since 1997.
1. No talk of independence for Hong Kong.
2. No call for any action to undermine the rule of the Chinese Communist Party.
We can talk about anything, except independence or anything that might undermine the rule of the Communist party of China. Those areas aside, anything goes.
We can talk about anything, except independence or anything that might undermine the rule of the Communist party of China. Those areas aside, anything goes.
We do not live in a western-style democracy. We are part of China, everyone recognises that both de jure and de facto. Our sovereign is neither a Nice Monarchy nor a Robust Republic. It’s an ancient Confucian state, now run by marxist-leninists. Call is “tyrannical” if you want — as did Lord Patton a while back. I wouldn’t quibble. When you are ruled by a tyrant, you’ve go to be ready for it to act like a tyrant. Don’t be surprised. Don’t be, like the Washington Post, “outraged” when the tyrant acts like a tyrant.
Yet this tyrant has acted rather less harshly than it might have.
Take the 2019 riots we had here in Hong Kong, for the best part of a year. Our very own “mostly peaceful demonstrations”.
Were they really peaceful? No, they were not.
The initially peaceful mass demonstrations had by mid year descended into chaotic trashing of the city. I went along to observe many of them, and we, my wife and I, watched in horror, as our beloved city was put to the torch. Not just occupation and vandalising the Legislative Council and other government offices and of mainland-owned companies, but also of individual companies and even stations on the MTR, our world-best subway.
You object: if they have have at times been a little less than “mostly peaceful” were they not at least “brave warriors fighting for freedom and justice”?
Again, no.
The west pushed that narrative, of course. But if you went on the street and talked to them (and I did) their anger was nativist. They promoted the idea that they were fighting against “encroachment by Beijing” because the western media lapped it up. In reality they hated that more individual mainlanders were coming into Hong Kong — at a rate of 150 a day, agreed during the Asian Financial Crisis as a means of giving economic stimulus to Hong Kong. They were threatened -- they said so, openly -- by mainlanders with their crude money and crude ways. Ways that Cantonese did not like: toddlers piddling in the gutter, spitting, smoking in non-smoking areas. I grant, those are pretty crude and you get a bit leery for fear they will infect your refined (colonial) ways. More serious: mainlanders started landing plum jobs — not through mainland nepotism, but because they were very often better trained, with better degrees — buying local real estate, pushing up property prices in a fraught market. They also got very upset with the use of mandarin and simplified characters.
What about “Beijing Interference”?
That is, interference from Beijing, at government level, in the operations of Hong Kong? Of course there was some involvement. It would be weird if there were none. Until 2020, any Beijing involvement in Hong Kong matters came through “interpretations” of local laws by the National People’s Congress, but at the request of the Hong Kong government.
Was there any level of malevolent Beijing “interference” that justified rioting? No, there was not.
I know this from personal experience: I was a senior member of the Australian government liaising with the Hong Kong government. Later I founded and ran an education company in Hong Kong, during which I established a lobbying body for the private education industry. We were involved with the Hong Kong government and its legislature, drafting and amending regulations for the education sector. Not once was there any hint of Beijing behind-the-scenes involvement.
The demonstrators were almost all very young, mostly teenagers. I’m gonna go ahead and say: they had not a clue if there were or if there were not any Beijing “interference” in the running of Hong Kong. No idea. ADDED: my wife reminds me that post-handover the Hong Kong school curriculum removed any teaching of Chinese history. Crazy but true.
What these young demonstrators did have was a visceral anger at their cousins from the mainland, coming here and showing them up. That they did not like. And for that they torched our city. In any other context that would be slammed as “racist” though that’s a tough charge when they are literally of the same ethnicity. John Cleese was condemned in the UK, for saying London was “no longer English”. Racist! The Cantonese calumny of their Chinese cousins was the same.
Graffiti Graphics
I remember when I first saw some of the graffiti that shocked me in 2019. Hong Kong was, and is again, a place where there is virtually no graffiti, which I’ve always viewed as a positive, a reflection of the fact that people respect their home. On seeing the 2019 graffiti, vicious attacks on mainlanders and the CCP, I was shocked. And I thought, if this shocks me, how are the Leninist apparatchiks up north going to view this? The'll be freaked!
There were graffiti to “Liberate Hong Kong”, to start a “Modern Revolution” -- and nothing frightens an old revolutionary more than calls for a “revolution”. There were rude, crude and horrid graffiti: “kill the cockroaches from the north”, “stop the mainland locusts”, “CCP: Black Party”, “Let’s Burn together”.
What was surprising was not that Beijing responded to this. This lawlessness. This provocation. What was surprising was that it took so long to do so and that when it did that the response was relatively mild. At the time there was much talk of “Beijing bringing in the tanks” as they had done in June ’89 -- almost as if people were hoping for an extreme reaction so they could demonise Beijing. But not a single PLA soldier left their barracks, except with brooms, to sweep the streets. In the end it was not beasts of war but beasts of law that contained the riots: via the National Security Legislation.
One may argue the merits and demerits of that Law - many say it is too broad -- but whatever, we can’t argue that it was not far more restrained than tanks in the streets.
And so to these “seditious” books.
I’ve just gone over to read them, what’s available at the WaPo story. I’ve discussed them with Jing, my wife, born and brought up in Beijing, a linguist, scholar of Classical Chinese. I note that they’re written in Cantonese. Jing says -- ever the northerner --there's no such thing as “written Cantonese”, rather she says they’re written in combination slang and dialect. In any case, it’s not standard mandarin Chinese, which in itself is an indication of where the teachers are coming from -- let’s cock a snook at Beijing, why don’t we?
Second: that the reference to current events and criticism of Beijing is very obvious. The Chinese are no strangers to abstruse literary allegories. These are pretty in-your-face. The WaPo claims they are “...indirectreferences to social issues.... and implied criticism”. To any Chinese the references are direct and explicit.
This does rather sound like excuse-making, doesn’t it? To repeat: in Hong Kong we don’t live in a Democracy. If you want a full-on democracy where you can vote the president, then Hong Kong is not your place. Never was, never will be (maybe).
We live under the rule of Beijing. Call it a tyranny if you will, call it an Authoritarian-Leninism, call it Fascist-Mercantalism (a case can be made for each). What it most certainly is not is a democracy.
The RED LINES were made clear: do not talk of independence, do not talk of secession, and no blatant attack on the Communist Party. Got that? Ok, go ahead and say and write what you will. (I remember talking to some of the Yellows and they denied that they’d pushed for independence. "But I saw the graffiti with mine own eyes!" I say. Didn’t matter. Denial and deflection)
It’s true that we were -- kind of -- promised we could choose our Chief Executive by universal suffrage. I say “kind of”, because in the Basic Law, our mini-constitution, it says the method for choosing the CE “shall be specified in the light of the actual situation in ... Hong Kong...” with the “ultimate aim” of choosing by universal suffrage. Clearly loopholes you can drive truck through. It’s never been a copper-bottomed guarantee. The rioters in 2019 made sure that the “actual situation” is not that good, and that “ultimate” now means “final, final”.
Do I care? Not much. What I care about, what many care about, is having a Chief Executive who is competent and works for the benefit of Hong Kong. I was in Shanghai when the Mayor was Zhu Rongji. He made a huge and positive difference to Shanghai. If we could have a Zhu Rongji for Hong Kong, then I’m two thumbs up.
Was there any level of malevolent Beijing “interference” that justified rioting? No, there was not.
I know this from personal experience: I was a senior member of the Australian government liaising with the Hong Kong government. Later I founded and ran an education company in Hong Kong, during which I established a lobbying body for the private education industry. We were involved with the Hong Kong government and its legislature, drafting and amending regulations for the education sector. Not once was there any hint of Beijing behind-the-scenes involvement.
The demonstrators were almost all very young, mostly teenagers. I’m gonna go ahead and say: they had not a clue if there were or if there were not any Beijing “interference” in the running of Hong Kong. No idea. ADDED: my wife reminds me that post-handover the Hong Kong school curriculum removed any teaching of Chinese history. Crazy but true.
What these young demonstrators did have was a visceral anger at their cousins from the mainland, coming here and showing them up. That they did not like. And for that they torched our city. In any other context that would be slammed as “racist” though that’s a tough charge when they are literally of the same ethnicity. John Cleese was condemned in the UK, for saying London was “no longer English”. Racist! The Cantonese calumny of their Chinese cousins was the same.
Graffiti Graphics
I remember when I first saw some of the graffiti that shocked me in 2019. Hong Kong was, and is again, a place where there is virtually no graffiti, which I’ve always viewed as a positive, a reflection of the fact that people respect their home. On seeing the 2019 graffiti, vicious attacks on mainlanders and the CCP, I was shocked. And I thought, if this shocks me, how are the Leninist apparatchiks up north going to view this? The'll be freaked!
There were graffiti to “Liberate Hong Kong”, to start a “Modern Revolution” -- and nothing frightens an old revolutionary more than calls for a “revolution”. There were rude, crude and horrid graffiti: “kill the cockroaches from the north”, “stop the mainland locusts”, “CCP: Black Party”, “Let’s Burn together”.
What was surprising was not that Beijing responded to this. This lawlessness. This provocation. What was surprising was that it took so long to do so and that when it did that the response was relatively mild. At the time there was much talk of “Beijing bringing in the tanks” as they had done in June ’89 -- almost as if people were hoping for an extreme reaction so they could demonise Beijing. But not a single PLA soldier left their barracks, except with brooms, to sweep the streets. In the end it was not beasts of war but beasts of law that contained the riots: via the National Security Legislation.
One may argue the merits and demerits of that Law - many say it is too broad -- but whatever, we can’t argue that it was not far more restrained than tanks in the streets.
And so to these “seditious” books.
I’ve just gone over to read them, what’s available at the WaPo story. I’ve discussed them with Jing, my wife, born and brought up in Beijing, a linguist, scholar of Classical Chinese. I note that they’re written in Cantonese. Jing says -- ever the northerner --there's no such thing as “written Cantonese”, rather she says they’re written in combination slang and dialect. In any case, it’s not standard mandarin Chinese, which in itself is an indication of where the teachers are coming from -- let’s cock a snook at Beijing, why don’t we?
Second: that the reference to current events and criticism of Beijing is very obvious. The Chinese are no strangers to abstruse literary allegories. These are pretty in-your-face. The WaPo claims they are “...indirectreferences to social issues.... and implied criticism”. To any Chinese the references are direct and explicit.
This does rather sound like excuse-making, doesn’t it? To repeat: in Hong Kong we don’t live in a Democracy. If you want a full-on democracy where you can vote the president, then Hong Kong is not your place. Never was, never will be (maybe).
We live under the rule of Beijing. Call it a tyranny if you will, call it an Authoritarian-Leninism, call it Fascist-Mercantalism (a case can be made for each). What it most certainly is not is a democracy.
The RED LINES were made clear: do not talk of independence, do not talk of secession, and no blatant attack on the Communist Party. Got that? Ok, go ahead and say and write what you will. (I remember talking to some of the Yellows and they denied that they’d pushed for independence. "But I saw the graffiti with mine own eyes!" I say. Didn’t matter. Denial and deflection)
It’s true that we were -- kind of -- promised we could choose our Chief Executive by universal suffrage. I say “kind of”, because in the Basic Law, our mini-constitution, it says the method for choosing the CE “shall be specified in the light of the actual situation in ... Hong Kong...” with the “ultimate aim” of choosing by universal suffrage. Clearly loopholes you can drive truck through. It’s never been a copper-bottomed guarantee. The rioters in 2019 made sure that the “actual situation” is not that good, and that “ultimate” now means “final, final”.
Do I care? Not much. What I care about, what many care about, is having a Chief Executive who is competent and works for the benefit of Hong Kong. I was in Shanghai when the Mayor was Zhu Rongji. He made a huge and positive difference to Shanghai. If we could have a Zhu Rongji for Hong Kong, then I’m two thumbs up.
