Why Didn't Britain Ever Give Democracy to Hong ... - My FDL
my.firedoglake.com/inoljt/tag/british-empire/In the end, Hong Kong never did become a democracy under Great Britain. ... Why did it continue appointing bland British bureaucrats, who had never lived ... in free and fair elections, they can protest and assembly, but the rules are bent so
...
---------------
- The Guardian - 19 hours ago'Hong Kong has lost its role as the gateway to China. ... the right to protest, under the British it never enjoyed even a semblance ofdemocracy. ... China will not accept the election of a chief executive hostile to Chinese rule.
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- New York Times - 1 hour ago“In the past they had the British choose their leaders, and they weren't terribly upset,” she said. ... Hong Kong, which since its return to Chinese rule in 1997 has continued to enjoy freedoms ... “This kind of protest is totally new.
----------------
Hong Kong's Transition to Chinese Rule: The Limits of Autonomy
By Ralf Horlemann
--------------
Hong Kong Protests: Hong Kong Government Open To Meeting With Protesters
By Matt Schiavenza@MattSchiavenzam.schiavenza@ibtimes.com
on October 01 2014 9:35 AM
Protesters gather
around the Golden Bauhinia Square before an official flag raising ceremony to
commemorate the Chinese National Day in Hong Kong, Oct. 1, 2014. Reuters
A Hong Kong
government official signaled that for the first time, the territory's
leadership would be willing to meet with leaders from the protest movement that
has embroiled the territory, according
to a report in the Wall Street Journal. The official cautioned,
however, that the government would call off the meeting if students insisted on
the resignation of Leung Chun-ying, the territory's chief executive.
The official's
comment emerged after the demonstration enlarged on Wednesday, as students and
workers across the territory were off work for National Day. The Chinese
government has urged its Hong Kong counterpart to
wait out the protests and resolve the standoff "in a peaceful
manner."
The protesters,
initially comprised of student-led groups but now representing a broad
cross-section of society, have called for Hong Kong to reverse a just-passed
election law that limits candidates for the territory's chief executive to
those vetted by Beijing. The Chinese government has explicitly rejected the
protesters' demand for a "one person, one vote" electoral system. A
strongly worded editorial in the People's Daily, a state-run newspaper, described
Beijing's position on Hong Kong's elections as "unshakeable."
-----------------
Latest
“Here’s
more video from the new front in the protest in the Tsim Sha Tsui area,
courtesy of reader chinesemovies via GuardianWitness.” Hong Kong protests spread on National Day
------------------
oct1/14
The day's big disappointment- Seriously in 2014- Who
would do a trade deal with a nation that won't honour it's treaties??? And many
of us love China and China's extraordinary culture- but if you can't keep a
simple 50 year treaty??? how can u be trusted with manufacturing and performing
on markets??..imho-- SIGH... AND THEN
HARVARD POSTS INCREDIBLE COMMON SENSE - AND REALITY CHECK- BRITISH RULE NEVER ALLOWED HONG KONG FREE
ELECTIONS...EITHER... so intelligent and educated and savvy... China has been very very decent- in a hard world - that common sense must rule ...imho Honour restored..next article is Harvard's WAKE UP CALL.
June 30, 1997 | Hong Kong Is
Handed Over to China From Britain
By THE LEARNING NETWORK
JUNE 30, 2011 12:47 PMJune 30, 2011 12:47 pm
On June 30, 1997, the Union Jack flag was lowered over
Hong Kong’s Government House for the final time after 156 years of British
Colonial rule. Chinese and British leaders attended a handover ceremony that
night; the Chinese spoke of a brighter future while the British wished their
colony well.
In his July 1, 1997, Times article, Edward A. Gargan
noted, “For many ordinary people in the streets of Hong Kong, this was a time
of celebration, not necessarily over the departure of the British or the
arrival of the new masters from Beijing, but for experience of witnessing a big
moment in history.”
The island of Hong Kong, situated off southern China in
the South China Sea, was acquired by Britain in 1842 in the treaty ending the
First Opium War with China. It acquired part of the mainland near Hong Kong
after the Second Opium War and expanded its mainland territory in 1898,
receiving a 99-year lease on the land.
With the lease set to end in 1997, Britain and China
began discussing the future of Hong Kong in the early 1980s. The Communist
Chinese government was determined to atone for the humiliation of the “unequal
treaties” of the 19th century that forced China to cede land to Western powers.
It would accept nothing less than a return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty.
The British were concerned of Hong Kong’s economic future
under Communist rule; under the British, Hong Kong had developed into one of
the most important financial centers in the world. The Chinese leader Deng
Xiaoping proposed a compromise known as “one country, two systems,” under which
Hong Kong would be placed under Chinese sovereignty, but continue to operate
with a capitalist economy for the next 50 years. An agreement was signed in
1984 for Hong Kong to be handed over in 1997.
The arrival of Chinese rule elicited both celebration and
apprehension in Hong Kong. The Times reported that Martin Lee, a member of the
Hong Kong Legislature that was to be replaced under Chinese rule, declared from
the Legislative Council building balcony: “If there is no democracy, there is
no rule of law. We want Hong Kong and China to advance together and not step
back together. We are proud to be Chinese, more proud than ever before. But we
ask: Why is it our leaders in China will not give us more democracy?”
Connect to Today
In the final years of British rule, the British-appointed
governor, Christopher Patten, introduced a number of measures intended to make
Hong Kong more democratic. Some of these measures irked China, which considered
them to be in violation of the 1984 agreement. China has restricted democracy
in Hong Kong since it took over.
In June 2011, the International Herald Tribune reporter
Joyce Hor-Chung Lau reported that the Hong Kong International Art Fair included
“contentious materials that might have been off-putting to Beijing,” notably a
work by the dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, who at the time was being held
by Chinese authorities. (He was recently released.)
Curator Kacey Wong, who organized a group exhibition in
response to Mr. Ai’s detention, said: “We’re holding this show because, in Hong
Kong, we can still enjoy different opinions. We don’t want Hong Kong to go down
the path China has in terms of human rights.”
If you lived in Hong Kong and were curating an art fair
or exhibition, which artists would you include, and why? What kinds of artistic
and political statements would you want to make? Would you be comfortable
staking a political claim through art in Hong Kong, where China has restricted
democracy? What is at stake? What are the risks? What if you wanted to hold an
art fair in the United States or other democratic nation featuring the works of
dissident artists from China and Hong Kong? Do you think it would affect
diplomatic relations between that country and China?
--------------
Harvard's Business Review
Understanding China’s Hard
Line on Hong Kong
by Justin Fox
| 9:38 AM October 1, 2014
When
Chinese students first took to the streets of Beijing in April 1989 — initially
to mourn the death of reformist former Premier Hu Yaobang, then to protest for
more democracy — nobody in the Chinese leadership seems to have been planning
for it end with tanks rolling into Tiananmen Square.
As Ezra
P. Vogel tells it in his painfully long but hugely informative biography Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China
— which I read on trains and planes and in hotel rooms during a trip to China
in June organized by the China-United States
Exchange Foundation — many Communist Party officials were
sympathetic to the protesters. The most important of those officials, Deng
Xiaoping, was not so well-disposed, but he initially hoped the movement would
fizzle out on its own. It was only when it didn’t, and after inept attempts at
shutting the protests down without violence backfired, that Deng put his foot
down and his underlings sent in the tanks.
What
does all this portend for the protests currently unfolding in Hong Kong? Not
sure, of course. But when Edward Wong and Chris Buckley write
in The New York Times that “the
toolbox of President Xi Jinping of China appears remarkably empty of
instruments that could lead to palatable long-term solutions for all involved,”
it’s hard not to worry that things could go terribly wrong. On the mainland,
the Chinese leadership has learned since 1989 how to shut down incipient
protests quietly or channel citizen anger in Party-approved directions. Those
methods don’t work in Hong Kong, Wong and Buckley write, because the former
British colony has civil liberties and freedom of speech. But at the same time,
it’s hard to see how the protesters’ demands for political
self-determination will ever fly in Beijing.
Why
won’t they fly? It helps to go back to Deng, and the intellectual and political
battle that followed in the wake of Mao Zedong’s death. Mao was of course the
mercurial, tyrannical, economically disastrous founding father of Communist
China. Deng had been a top Mao lieutenant since the birth of the People’s
Republic in 1949, but was sent off to a rural tractor factory during the Cultural
Revolution in the late 1960s for trying to fix the country’s flattened economy
by, in Mao’s words, “pursuing the capitalist road.” He was
rehabilitated in 1974 and briefly served as Mao’s right-hand man, but was
expelled from office again in early 1976.
After
Mao’s death in September of that year, the country at first appeared headed in
the direction outlined in a February 1977 People’s Daily editorial with
the typically opaque headline, “Study the Documents Well and Grasp the Key
Link.” It became better known as the “two whatevers,” which may
sound like a Bud Light ad
but was actually a hard-line commitment to “resolutely uphold whatever policy
decisions Chairman Mao made, and unswervingly follow whatever instructions
Chairman Mao gave.”
The
problem with this approach, as Deng pointed
out in May 1977, was that over the years Mao had contradicted himself
repeatedly and even admitted to making loads of mistakes. (“He said that no one
can avoid making mistakes in his work unless he does none at all,” Deng wrote.)
Faithfully adhering to Mao’s decisions and instructions was a recipe for
confusion and error — and in fact Mao’s handpicked successor Hua Guofeng had
already begun changing course even while publicly espousing the “two
whatevers.”
A year
later, Deng threw his weight instead behind the approach outlined in an essay by a
philosophy professor first distributed in Party circles and then published
in the Guangming Daily and elsewhere, titled
“Practice is the sole criterion for testing truth.” Or, as Deng himself liked
to put it, “It doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white, as long as it catches
mice.”
Deng’s
view of course prevailed. He became the country’s de facto leader, and not only
stayed in that role for almost 15 years but built a production line of
presidents and premiers who have largely followed his lead. That lead has
consisted of doing whatever it takes to keep the economy growing, as long as it
doesn’t threaten the supremacy of the Communist Party. (In fact, it’s economic
growth that has come to be seen as essential to maintaining the supremacy
of the Communist Party.)
Deng
thought that Nikita Khrushchev irreparably weakened the Soviet Union by disavowing
predecessor Josef Stalin in 1956. And so while he abandoned virtually all
of Mao’s economic policies, Deng never disavowed Mao or the one-party state.
After the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989, events in Eastern Europe and the former
USSR seemed to Deng and his colleagues to prove that preserving one-party rule
was essential. The collapse of Communist rule not only left a lot of former
Communist rulers out of work, imprisoned, or killed, but in Russia and other
former Soviet Republics it also left the economy and the people worse off, at
least through the 1990s. The contrast of that debacle with the world-changing
economic miracle that China has pulled off since 1978 only strengthened the
conviction among China’s leaders that their way was the right one.
It’s not
so important to them that Maoism or even Communism continue to be practiced in
China — despite the frequent obligatory references to Marxism and “Mao Zedong
Thought” in political pronouncements, the ideas of Thomas Jefferson and
Alexander Hamilton appear to have more currency in modern Washington than
Marx’s or Mao’s do in Beijing. But it’s extremely important that the Party
remain supreme. Because otherwise, well, look at Russia.
But if
the Chinese Communist Party isn’t really Maoist, or even Communist, what is it?
The parallel that springs most readily to mind, especially when one learns
about the systematic ways in which the Party selects, trains, and promotes its
leaders (recommended reading: Richard McGregor’s The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers),
is that of a big corporation — IBM or GM in their Organization Man heydays. Another parallel is
to the corporatist ruling parties that drove earlier modernization drives in
other East Asian nations, from the LDP in Japan to the KMT in Taiwan to the PAP
in Singapore to what’s now called the Saenuri Party in South Korea.
To an
outsider, in fact, it’s not clear at all that the example of the former Soviet
Union in the 1990s is the one Chinese officials should be looking at. Western
corporations are effectively one-party states, but they are at least in theory
open to that party being deposed by shareholders if it does a poor enough job.
And most of the other Asian corporatist parties have moved away from one-party
rule, allowing opposition politicians to not only contest elections but win
them, without bringing economic ruin or even entirely ceding power. But the
idea that China could learn political lessons from its smaller neighbors isn’t
popular in Beijing. Instead, the mantra is that the country is uniquely diverse
and hard to govern, and needs single-party rule to stay together. (For an
impassioned and quite entertaining defense of this view, see Shanghai venture
capitalist Eric Li’s TEDGlobal
talk from last year.)
Hong
Kong is different from the rest of China, and Beijing has been willing to let
it be different. But Party leaders don’t appear willing to let the
territory’s inhabitants challenge the Party’s ultimate authority over them —
presumably out of fear that this would weaken its authority elsewhere in China.
This year, in fact, they have made several new assertions of that authority,
most recently the
dictate that, while Hong Kong residents will get to elect a political
leader in 2017 (something they never got to do under British rule, by the way),
Beijing will choose the three nominees.
That’s
what brought on the current round of protests. They’re embarrassing for China’s
leadership, and any harder crackdown will be even more embarrassing, and
possibly extremely damaging to Hong Kong’s economy. But don’t imagine that Xi
Jinping and his colleagues in Beijing will be easily persuaded by a bunch
of protesters 1,200 miles away, and a bunch of negative media coverage or even
official condemnation from the West, that the course that Deng Xiaoping
laid in back in 1978 — and violently reaffirmed in 1989 — is in need of a
major correction.
More blog posts by Justin Fox
More on: China, Conflict, Global business
-----------------
license 2 protest-
Asia Pacific
HK police chief tells
officers: "You did no wrong"
Protesters take
cover as police fire tear gas during scuffles at a pro-democracy demonstration
in Hong Kong on September 28, 2014
--------------
FORBES
Hong Kong Protests: Beating
The Media Crackdown
FORBES- Beating The Media Crackdown- check the sign Lamuel-Chung
As Hong Kong protestors band together in opposition to
Beijing’s move to wrest political power from the metropolis, the government has
pulled the plug on some social media and news.
---------------
Hong Kong protesters use a mesh network to organise
14:30 30
September 2014 by Aviva Rutkin and Jacob Aron
Hong
Kong's mass protest is networked. Activists are relying on a free app that can
send messages without any cellphone connection.
Since the
pro-democracy protests turned ugly over the weekend, many worry that the
Chinese government would block local phone networks.
In
response, activists have turned to the FireChat app to send supportive messages
and share the latest news. On Sunday alone, the app was downloaded more than
100,000 times in Hong Kong, its developers said. FireChat relies on "mesh
networking", a technique that allows data to zip directly from one
phone to another via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. Ordinarily, if two people want to
communicate this
way, they need to be fairly close together. But as more people join in, the
network grows and messages can travel further.
Mesh
networks can be useful for people who are caught in natural disasters or, like
those in Hong Kong, protesting under tricky conditions. FireChat came in handy
for protesters in Taiwan and Iraq this year.
But they
also come with risks. Hans-Christoph Steiner at The
Guardian Project, which helps activists circumvent censorship, warns that
Firechat has no built-in encryption, so messages can be read by anyone within
range. "This is not nearly as bad as one central authority being able to
read all the messages. Nevertheless, it is something that at-risk users need to
be aware of," he says. FireChat has said it aims to add encryption in the
future.
Bluetooth
communications come with an identifier called a MAC address, which could also
be used to track down protest ringleaders. "They can be singled out for
arrest or questioning, their social network can be looked at to try to find the
people who have the capability to disrupt whatever is going on," says Steven Murdoch of the University of
Cambridge. "Giving good security in mesh networks is still an area of
research."
Chinese
authorities could also use radio jamming to shut down mesh networks in a local
area, or prevent more people from joining by cutting off access to app stores. "There
are much more aggressive actions the authorities in Hong Kong could be
taking," says Murdoch. "It's good that they are not doing that, but
there is the risk that things could get worse."
--------------
AUSTRALIA- HK
expats show solidarity in Sydney
The Hong Kong government office in Sydney has been covered with messages supporting protesters
----------
On Monday,
April 7, over 300 attended the talk "One Country Two Systems Under
Threat" hosted by Canada-Hong Kong Link. Another talk "Hong Kong's
Democratic Future" was held by Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada on
Wednesday. Chan and Lee discussed Hong Kong's current political crisis and
democratic development.
After
visiting Toronto, Chan and Lee met with New Democratic Party Leaders Thomas
Mulcair and MPs Laurin Liu, Don Davies, Fin Donnelly and Craig Scott as well as
Minister of Employment and Social Development Jason Kenney in Ottawa to discuss
Hong Kong's democratic development.
Beijing
has explicitly stated that it will not allow candidates who "confront" the Chinese government
to stand for election. Beijing loyalists are seeking to control the
2017 election through the nomination process. Last month, Rao Geping, a member
of the Basic Law (Hong Kong's mini-constitution) Committee and a law professor
at Peking University, openly rejected any public nomination of Hong
Kong's next leader.
According
to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Hong Kong Basic Law, Hong Kong
people have the right to participate in free and fair elections.
Calling
on Canada to protect fair elections in Hong Kong
By
Ellie Ng |
April 22, 2014
----------------
Hong
Kong's embattled leader attended a flag-raising Wednesday to mark China's
National Day after refusing to meet with protesters who threatened to expand
pro-democracy demonstrations unless he resigns and the Chinese leadership
agrees to broader electoral reforms
From Tiwan
Beijing
authorities should listen and heed the voices of the Hong Kong people and
handle their opinions with a peaceful yet cautious attitude, said President
Ma Ying-jeou yesterday.
|
||
------------------
Hong
Kong Protesters Brace for a Holiday Test
Protesters Expect
Attempts to Break Up Demonstrations
--------------
Former Hong Kong governor Patten calls for "genuine
consultation" - BBC
ONDON (Reuters) - Former Hong Kong governor Chris Patten
called on Wednesday for a new period of genuine consultation over demands for
greater democracy in the former British colony.
"I think we've got to see dialogue replacing tear
gas and pepper sprays," he told BBC radio.
Patten, the last British governor before the 1997
handover of the territory to China, added: "I think in order to save face
for Beijing and for the Hong Kong government, the right thing to do is to
embark on a new period of consultation, make it genuine consultation, because
there are a lot of very moderate people on the pro-democracy side ..."
(Reporting by Stephen Addison; editing by William
Schomberg)
https://in.news.yahoo.com/former-hong-kong-governor-patten-calls-genuine-consultation-132047242.html
---------------
Hong Kong protests push Beijing’s propaganda machine into
overdrive
October 1, 2014 Updated: October 1, 2014 05:16 PM
------------
Some families with children take part in protest
Close to tears, Occupy co-founder Chan Kin-man apologised
to residents for the disruption the sit-ins have caused and asked for tolerance
FRANCE
Hong Kong protesters defy China's National Day
Agence France-Presse
Posted at 10/01/2014 9:03 PM | Updated as of 10/01/2014
9:03 PM
--------------
The weekend’s events were unnecessary because there was
an alternative outcome. It was clear from the debates since 2012 on how to
elect Hong Kong’s chief executive, that a sensible compromise was possible, one
that allowed competitive elections (the pro-democracy camp’s hope) without
creating too much uncertainty or instability (Beijing’s fear).
The Business Insider
Politics More: The Brookings Institution Hong Kong
Protests China
Why The Protests In Hong
Kong Didn't Need To Happen
Richard C. Bush
III, The Brookings Institution
The events in Hong Kong this past weekend were as
unfortunate as they were unnecessary.
They were unfortunate because some pro-democracy
advocates initiated actions for which they had not sought a permit that rally
organizers usually secure. In response, the police chose to use tough measures
(pepper spray, tear gas, batons), and the initial clashes triggered much larger
demonstrations.
Also unfortunate were the obvious and severe splits
within the pro-democracy camp over goals, strategy, and tactics. Those splits
will complicate any future efforts to bring about a political system that fair
people would recognize as an effective and stable democracy.
The weekend’s events were unnecessary because there was
an alternative outcome. It was clear from the debates since 2012 on how to
elect Hong Kong’s chief executive, that a sensible compromise was possible, one
that allowed competitive elections (the pro-democracy camp’s hope) without
creating too much uncertainty or instability (Beijing’s fear).
Moderate democrats had proposed approaches that would
have led to such a compromise. In the end, however, the Chinese government set
electoral parameters that would allow a one-person-one-vote election, but would
give it and its allies in Hong Kong a lot of control over who could run.
With those rules of the game, Hong Kong’s radicals were
empowered, and the instability that occurred last weekend was almost
inevitable. Beijing has been quick to blame the pan-democrats for the disorder,
but it had the power and the opportunity to facilitate a good outcome.
None of what we have seen in the last few days needed to
happen.
-----------------------
Financials: Dec. Bonds are
currently 25 higher at 128’22, 10 Yr. Notes 15 higher at 125’03.5 and 5 Yr.
Notes 8.5 higher at 118’16.7. This mornings ADP Private Sector Jobs Survey
should an increase of 213,000 jobs vs. expectations of 209,000. Ordinarily this
would be good news. However the geopolitical and geoeconomic situations have
made this report somewhat insignificant. Demonstrations in Hong Kong for more
democratic elections, Syria and ISIS, Ebola and a slowing of economies in
Europe (France is now predicted to have negative growth through 2015) have
pushed Bond and note prices higher (rates lower). I feel that this will lessen
the prospects of a rate hike in the U.S. anytime in the next 6 months as it is
evident that Europe will continue quantitative easing making our current rates
(about 2.5% for 10 Yr. Notes) attractive by comparison. I also think that we
have to be careful of excessive Dollar strength which would be predicated by
higher rates here in the U.S. All that being said we remain long June 2017/short
June 2015 Eurodollar futures and will cover this position if the spread trades
below 198 premium the June 2015 contract.
Hong Kong, Syria, Ebola,
Slowing European Manufacturing, What's Next?
PRICE Futures Group Wed, Oct
1 2014, 13:35 GMT
by Marc Nemenoff | PRICE
Futures Group
----------------------
Hong Kong Protests: Hong Kong Government Open To Meeting With Protesters
on October 01 2014 9:35 AM
The official's comment emerged after the demonstration enlarged on Wednesday, as students and workers across the territory were off work for National Day. The Chinese government has urged its Hong Kong counterpart to wait out the protests and resolve the standoff "in a peaceful manner."
The protesters, initially comprised of student-led groups but now
representing a broad cross-section of society, have called for Hong Kong to
reverse a just-passed election law that limits candidates for the territory's
chief executive to those vetted by Beijing. The Chinese government has
explicitly rejected the protesters' demand for a "one person, one
vote" electoral system. A strongly worded editorial in the People's Daily,
a state-run newspaper, described Beijing's position on Hong Kong's elections as
"unshakeable."
Hong Kong's mass protest is networked. Activists are relying on
a free app that can send messages without any cellphone connection.
Since the pro-democracy protests turned ugly over the weekend,
many worry that the Chinese government would block local phone networks.
In response, activists have turned to the FireChat app to send
supportive messages and share the latest news. On Sunday alone, the app was
downloaded more than 100,000 times in Hong Kong, its developers said. FireChat
relies on "mesh
networking", a technique that allows data to zip directly from one
phone to another via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. Ordinarily, if two people want to
communicate this
way, they need to be fairly close together. But as more people join in, the
network grows and messages can travel further.
Mesh networks can be useful for people who are caught in
natural disasters or, like those in Hong Kong, protesting under tricky
conditions. FireChat came in handy for protesters in Taiwan and Iraq this year.
But they also come with risks. Hans-Christoph Steiner at The
Guardian Project, which helps activists circumvent censorship, warns that
Firechat has no built-in encryption, so messages can be read by anyone within
range. "This is not nearly as bad as one central authority being able to
read all the messages. Nevertheless, it is something that at-risk users need to
be aware of," he says. FireChat has said it aims to add encryption in the
future.
Bluetooth communications come with an
identifier called a MAC address, which could also be used to track down protest
ringleaders. "They can be singled out for arrest or questioning, their
social network can be looked at to try to find the people who have the
capability to disrupt whatever is going on," says Steven Murdoch of the University
of Cambridge. "Giving good security in mesh networks is still an area of
research."
Chinese authorities could also use radio jamming to shut down
mesh networks in a local area, or prevent more people from joining by cutting
off access to app stores. "There are much more aggressive actions the
authorities in Hong Kong could be taking," says Murdoch. "It's good
that they are not doing that, but there is the risk that things could get
worse."
Understanding China’s Hard
Line on Hong Kong
When Chinese students first took to the streets of Beijing in April 1989 —
initially to mourn the death of reformist former Premier Hu Yaobang, then to
protest for more democracy — nobody in the Chinese leadership seems to have
been planning for it end with tanks rolling into Tiananmen Square.As Ezra P. Vogel tells it in his painfully long but hugely informative biography Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China — which I read on trains and planes and in hotel rooms during a trip to China in June organized by the China-United States Exchange Foundation — many Communist Party officials were sympathetic to the protesters. The most important of those officials, Deng Xiaoping, was not so well-disposed, but he initially hoped the movement would fizzle out on its own. It was only when it didn’t, and after inept attempts at shutting the protests down without violence backfired, that Deng put his foot down and his underlings sent in the tanks.
What does all this portend for the protests currently unfolding in Hong Kong? Not sure, of course. But when Edward Wong and Chris Buckley write in The New York Times that “the toolbox of President Xi Jinping of China appears remarkably empty of instruments that could lead to palatable long-term solutions for all involved,” it’s hard not to worry that things could go terribly wrong. On the mainland, the Chinese leadership has learned since 1989 how to shut down incipient protests quietly or channel citizen anger in Party-approved directions. Those methods don’t work in Hong Kong, Wong and Buckley write, because the former British colony has civil liberties and freedom of speech. But at the same time, it’s hard to see how the protesters’ demands for political self-determination will ever fly in Beijing.
Why won’t they fly? It helps to go back to Deng, and the intellectual and political battle that followed in the wake of Mao Zedong’s death. Mao was of course the mercurial, tyrannical, economically disastrous founding father of Communist China. Deng had been a top Mao lieutenant since the birth of the People’s Republic in 1949, but was sent off to a rural tractor factory during the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s for trying to fix the country’s flattened economy by, in Mao’s words, “pursuing the capitalist road.” He was rehabilitated in 1974 and briefly served as Mao’s right-hand man, but was expelled from office again in early 1976.
After Mao’s death in September of that year, the country at first appeared headed in the direction outlined in a February 1977 People’s Daily editorial with the typically opaque headline, “Study the Documents Well and Grasp the Key Link.” It became better known as the “two whatevers,” which may sound like a Bud Light ad but was actually a hard-line commitment to “resolutely uphold whatever policy decisions Chairman Mao made, and unswervingly follow whatever instructions Chairman Mao gave.”
The problem with this approach, as Deng pointed out in May 1977, was that over the years Mao had contradicted himself repeatedly and even admitted to making loads of mistakes. (“He said that no one can avoid making mistakes in his work unless he does none at all,” Deng wrote.) Faithfully adhering to Mao’s decisions and instructions was a recipe for confusion and error — and in fact Mao’s handpicked successor Hua Guofeng had already begun changing course even while publicly espousing the “two whatevers.”
A year later, Deng threw his weight instead behind the approach outlined in an essay by a philosophy professor first distributed in Party circles and then published in the Guangming Daily and elsewhere, titled “Practice is the sole criterion for testing truth.” Or, as Deng himself liked to put it, “It doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice.”
Deng’s view of course prevailed. He became the country’s de facto leader, and not only stayed in that role for almost 15 years but built a production line of presidents and premiers who have largely followed his lead. That lead has consisted of doing whatever it takes to keep the economy growing, as long as it doesn’t threaten the supremacy of the Communist Party. (In fact, it’s economic growth that has come to be seen as essential to maintaining the supremacy of the Communist Party.)
Deng thought that Nikita Khrushchev irreparably weakened the Soviet Union by disavowing predecessor Josef Stalin in 1956. And so while he abandoned virtually all of Mao’s economic policies, Deng never disavowed Mao or the one-party state. After the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989, events in Eastern Europe and the former USSR seemed to Deng and his colleagues to prove that preserving one-party rule was essential. The collapse of Communist rule not only left a lot of former Communist rulers out of work, imprisoned, or killed, but in Russia and other former Soviet Republics it also left the economy and the people worse off, at least through the 1990s. The contrast of that debacle with the world-changing economic miracle that China has pulled off since 1978 only strengthened the conviction among China’s leaders that their way was the right one.
It’s not so important to them that Maoism or even Communism continue to be practiced in China — despite the frequent obligatory references to Marxism and “Mao Zedong Thought” in political pronouncements, the ideas of Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton appear to have more currency in modern Washington than Marx’s or Mao’s do in Beijing. But it’s extremely important that the Party remain supreme. Because otherwise, well, look at Russia.
But if the Chinese Communist Party isn’t really Maoist, or even Communist, what is it? The parallel that springs most readily to mind, especially when one learns about the systematic ways in which the Party selects, trains, and promotes its leaders (recommended reading: Richard McGregor’s The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers), is that of a big corporation — IBM or GM in their Organization Man heydays. Another parallel is to the corporatist ruling parties that drove earlier modernization drives in other East Asian nations, from the LDP in Japan to the KMT in Taiwan to the PAP in Singapore to what’s now called the Saenuri Party in South Korea.
To an outsider, in fact, it’s not clear at all that the example of the former Soviet Union in the 1990s is the one Chinese officials should be looking at. Western corporations are effectively one-party states, but they are at least in theory open to that party being deposed by shareholders if it does a poor enough job. And most of the other Asian corporatist parties have moved away from one-party rule, allowing opposition politicians to not only contest elections but win them, without bringing economic ruin or even entirely ceding power. But the idea that China could learn political lessons from its smaller neighbors isn’t popular in Beijing. Instead, the mantra is that the country is uniquely diverse and hard to govern, and needs single-party rule to stay together. (For an impassioned and quite entertaining defense of this view, see Shanghai venture capitalist Eric Li’s TEDGlobal talk from last year.)
Hong Kong is different from the rest of China, and Beijing has been willing to let it be different. But Party leaders don’t appear willing to let the territory’s inhabitants challenge the Party’s ultimate authority over them — presumably out of fear that this would weaken its authority elsewhere in China. This year, in fact, they have made several new assertions of that authority, most recently the dictate that, while Hong Kong residents will get to elect a political leader in 2017 (something they never got to do under British rule, by the way), Beijing will choose the three nominees.
That’s what brought on the current round of protests. They’re embarrassing for China’s leadership, and any harder crackdown will be even more embarrassing, and possibly extremely damaging to Hong Kong’s economy. But don’t imagine that Xi Jinping and his colleagues in Beijing will be easily persuaded by a bunch of protesters 1,200 miles away, and a bunch of negative media coverage or even official condemnation from the West, that the course that Deng Xiaoping laid in back in 1978 — and violently reaffirmed in 1989 — is in need of a major correction.
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CHRONOLOGY: Timeline of 156 years of British rule in Hong Kong
(Reuters) - Split between a densely populated mainland and over 200 islands in the South China Sea, the small, strategic territory of Hong Kong was under British rule for 156 years before reverting to Chinese sovereignty on July 1, 1997.
Here is a timeline of key events from this period:
-- March 1839: Governor of Hunan, Lin Tse-hsu, orders 20,000 chests of opium destroyed and for traders to retreat to the British merchant fleet anchored off Hong Kong, in an attempt to stamp out British importation of opium to China through southern Guangzhou. The first Opium War starts in September 1839.
-- August 29, 1842: The Queen of England and the Emperor of China sign the Treaty of Nanking; the first of a series of so-called 'Unequal Treaties' between East Asian states and western powers. The peace deal ends the first Opium War and cedes Hong Kong Island to Britain.
-- October 18, 1860: Kowloon Peninsula is ceded under the Convention of Peking, that ends the second Opium War
(1856-1860).
-- July 1, 1898: China leases the rural New Territories -- the mainland area adjacent to Kowloon and 235 islands -- to Britain for 99 years.
-- March, 1979: Hong Kong Governor Murray MacLehose raises the issue of Hong Kong with Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping on his first official visit to China. Deng says China will reassert sovereignty over the "special region" after June 30, 1997.
-- 1982: Former British Prime Minister Edward Heath meets Deng Xiaoping as Margaret Thatcher's special envoy. Deng tells him after 1997 China will rule Hong Kong under a "one country, two systems" policy.
-- September 22, 1982: Prime Minister Thatcher makes her first visit to China to discuss Hong Kong's future.
-- December 19, 1984: The Sino-British Joint Declaration, a treaty agreeing that all of Hong Kong would be returned to China at midnight on June 30, 1997, is signed in Beijing after four months of talks. It is ratified in May 1985.
-- June 1985: A 58-member Basic Law Drafting Committee is formed in Beijing to draw up Hong Kong's new mini constitution, the Basic Law. China's National People's Congress approves the final draft in April 1990.
-- July 9, 1992: Conservative British politician Chris Patten takes up his post as Hong Kong's last governor.
-- April 22, 1993: China and the UK resume negotiations on the future of Hong Kong after a hiatus of several months.
-- January 26, 1996: Beijing forms the 150-member Preparatory Committee of the Hong Kong SAR to appoint a 400-member Selection Committee that will choose Hong Kong's future Chief Executive.
-- September 26: China and the UK agree on arrangements for the handover ceremony.
-- February 23, 1997: Standing Committee of the National People's Congress in Beijing votes to repeal or amend various laws regarding civil liberties in Hong Kong.
-- June 30, 1997: The British flag is lowered and the Hong Kong and Chinese flags raised at midnight to signal Hong Kong's return to Chinese sovereignty after 156 years of British rule.
-- July 1, 1997: More than 4,000 troops from China's People's Liberation Army cross the border into Hong Kong in the early hours of the morning. Chief Executive, Tung Chee-hwa, and the Provisional Legislative Council, are sworn in later in the day.
Sources: Reuters, A Political Chronology of Central, South and East Asia, (Europa Publications, 2001).
http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/06/27/us-hongkong-anniversary-history-idUSSP27479920070627
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How long did Britain rule Hong Kong?
Britain ruled Hong Kong as a colony from 1841 - 1941, then as a British dependent territory from 1945 - 1997.
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China has a lot 2 be proud of- the progress advance is the greatest, fastest and best in history with over 1.5 billion people- it's massive... and the history and culture of China is incredible... they own USA and many countries $$$$$- ALL OF IT.... manufacturing etc. when China has a bad business day... THE WORLD HAS A BAD BUSINESS DAY...
China celebrates 65th National Day as protests continue in HK
China celebrated its 65th National Day on Wednesday amid high voltage pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.
The protests pose a direct challenge to ruling Communist Party's hold on the former British colony as well as the leadership of President Xi Jinping.
Addressing a reception marking the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC), Xi asserted that the Communist Party of China (CPC) remained key to the country's success.
"A nation may thrive in adversity but perish in ease. We cannot afford to be complacent at any time. This is certainly true for both the Party and the country, including the leadership and the people", he said at a reception, state-run Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday, Oct 1.
"Sixty-five years is but a fleeting moment in the history of human development. Yet in this short space the Chinese people have made spectacular and Earth-shaking changes," he said.
China has declared a week-long holiday as part of the National Day celebrations during which the country will be completely shutdown.
While China celebrated the anniversary, Hong Kong - which merged with China in 1997 - experienced its biggest pro- democracy protests by students which continue to intensify,
defying strong police actions.
The protesters numbering in thousands have been angered by the Chinese government's ruling, limiting who could stand as a candidate in 2017 elections for Hong Kong's leader.
The protests were in response to new legislation by China to allow people of Hong Kong to elect their next leader.
But the choice of candidates will be restricted to those approved by a pro-Beijing committee, which means that the Chinese government can effectively screen candidates.
Hong Kong Chief Executive C Y Leung, who is under pressure to resign, said Hong Kong must capitalise on the combined advantages of the present system; one country, two systems
formula.
Speaking at the National Day reception in Hong Kong, Leung said, "it is understandable that different people may have different ideas about a desirable reform package. But it is definitely better to have universal suffrage than not. It is definitely better to have the CE elected by five million eligible voters than by 1,200 people".
http://www.saharasamay.com/world-news/676562021/china-celebrates-65th-nationa-day-as-protests-continue-in-hk.html
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