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55 Days in Hong Kong

Peter Main

The Occupy movement in Hong Kong is entering its ninth week. That it has lasted as long as this is testimony not only to the tenacity of the largely youthful protesters but also the widespread support that flooded onto the streets whenever the government has attempted to disperse them.

The movement began as a student strike demanding the shelving of proposed electoral “reforms” that would have given Beijing control over the choice of candidates for the post of Chief Executive in elections in 2017. It rapidly turned into a mass confrontation with the government when a demonstration was violently attacked by police on September 26. The following day saw tens of thousands show their solidarity with the students who, having been refused a meeting with the current Chief Executive, CY Leung, occupied an area around government offices in Hong Kong’s Admiralty district.

The scale and dynamism of the movement then led to two other occupations on major shopping streets; Causeway Bay on Hong Kong island, and Nathan Road in Mong Kok on the Kowloon side of the harbour.

Triads

The government response to this outburst of popular support was as crude as it was counter-productive. Having suggested that it might agree to meet a delegation from the student organisations, it encouraged attacks on the Mong Kok occupation in broad daylight by thugs belonging to theTriads, Hong Kong’s notorious equivalent to the mafia. This not only brought a renewed wave of popular support but shredded the reputation of the government as a whole and CY Leung in particular.

Nathan Road is a major shopping street, the Oxford Street of Hong Kong, and it is common knowledge that the Triads extract huge sums from protection rackets in the area. As the police stood and watched, and even escorted supposedly arrested prisoners to waiting taxis, masked gangsters tried to beat the protesters off the street. But hundreds of cameras captured the scene and guaranteed instantaneous public understanding of the government’s insincerity, and its choice of allies.

The students’ leaders rightly highlighted government complicity in the Triad violence, threatening to drop their proposal for talks unless the government stopped this provocation and took action against the gangsters. The attacks stopped.

In response, the students did agree to talks with government representatives, though not with CY Leung who they held responsible for the entire controversy because of his acceptance of Beijing’s electoral policy, rather than representing Hong Kongers’ interests as they, and many others, thought he should.

Backing itself even further into a corner, on October 3, the government refused to go ahead with the proposed meeting, on the grounds that the students continued to call for mass support for their main demands; the right of citizens to nominate candidates for the post of Chief Executive, the resignation of CY Leung and the abolition of the “functional constituencies”, which give associations representing 28 economic sectors, in other words employers in those sectors, the right to “elect” members of the Legislative Council.

Once again, the government’s crass political incompetence brought a wave of public support for the Occupy movement and strengthened the leading role of the students’ organisations, the Hong Kong Federation, organising university students, and Scholarism which is based in secondary schools. The “official” opposition, politicians belonging to the parties which make up the “Pan-Democrats”, as well as the unofficial and self-appointed leaders of “Occupy Central”, who initially opposed the students’ occupation, were left floundering in the wake of their young competitors.

Debate

In the face of overwhelming public support for the Occupiers’ demand for a meeting, the government finally conceded and was even obliged to accept that it would be televised live. On October 21, five of the government’s top officials, led by Carrie Lam, the Chief Secretary and effectively CY Leung’s number two, and including senior law officers and civil servants, confronted the leaders of the Federation and Scholarism. If they were expecting to make short work of cutting their opponents down to size, they had a rude shock awaiting them.

While the students were clearly very well-prepared and all contributed clear and concise arguments to support their critique of the manifestly undemocratic procedure laid down by Beijing, the Government side could only repeat the mantra that the Basic Law, as interpreted by Beijing, had to be obeyed. Two of these supposedly high-powered administrators said not a word throughout the proceedings. In the end, in an embarrassingly insincere attempt to appear reasonable, the government side offered to write to Beijing’s representative on Hong Kong and Macau affairs, explaining the students’ concerns.

One obvious benefit of the Occupy movement has been the stimulation of a public debate about Hong Kong’s status, its political system and the rights of its citizens. The students’ central argument is that both the existing provision for the “functional constituencies” and the proposal that Beijing could veto candidates for the election of the Chief Executive are clearly completely undemocratic even though the Basic Law talks of a movement to democracy. The strength of this argument has not been lost on the public.

Just as significant, however, have been CY Leung’s attempts to justify Beijing’s policy. In an interview published by the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times, he gave his interpretation of the term “broadly representative” as used in the Basic Law. This, he said, should not be taken to mean “numerically representative” but rather that, “You have to take care of all the sectors in Hong Kong as much as you can and if it’s entirely a numbers game and numeric representation, then obviously you would be talking to half of the people in Hong Kong who earn less than HK$14,000 (some £1200) a month.” Clearly, in his opinion, that half of the population does not deserve to be represented as much as the other half, some of whom, of course, “earn” a great deal more than HK$14,000.

Having failed completely to defeat the democracy movement either by brute force or by political manoeuvre, and having run out of options, the government then decided to do nothing. This was its wisest decision because it began to bring to the fore the limitations of the Occupy tactic.

Immediately after the televised debate, the leaders of the movement proposed to hold a “referendum” of those taking part in the occupations to decide whether or not to continue. There was immediate disagreement not only over the idea of a referendum but also over whether there was any question of ending the protest when none of its demands had been met.

The idea was dropped within a matter of hours but the episode raised fundamental strategic questions over the future direction of the movement. The logic of the majority position, to continue the occupations, was to hold out until the government in Beijing agreed to reverse the decision of what is, in effect, its own Standing Committee. In the face of repeated declarations from Beijing that CY Leung had the full backing of the national government, how was that to be brought about?

Attrition

In effect, the Hong Kong government, doubtless under orders from Beijing, entered into a war of attrition with the protesters. On the whole, intimidation stopped, traffic and public transport were re-routed and a potentially long stand-off developed. At the same time, it was constantly repeated that the occupations were unlawful, a clear signal to “concerned citizens”, and corporations, that they would be entitled to seek a court order to stop any aspect of the occupations which was damaging business.

In due course, injunctions were sought by transport firms and traders whose businesses were affected and the courts, unsurprisingly, agreed to issue them.

The decision to lower the temperature of the dispute in Hong Kong may not have been influenced only by local concerns. In recent weeks, China has been very active internationally, both economically and diplomatically. A major confrontation on the streets of one of the world’s major financial centres would not have played well at the APEC summit or the G20 meeting, for example.

As with all previous street occupations around the world, as time passes their impact declines. The tens of thousands mobilised at the high points obviously cannot all camp out indefinitely and, as the numbers dwindle and the life of the city goes on, the need to maintain the occupation can become an end in itself. Inevitably, the question of leadership within the occupation becomes an issue; the leaders of the student organisations have been its public faces but the movement itself has no organisational structures for decision-making or holding leaders to account.

As a result, fundamental questions over the goals of the movement, as well as its strategy and tactics, cannot be resolved. Although the demand for democratic rights can be supported by everyone, there is no automatic agreement on how to go forward, given Beijing’s intransigence. There is a tension between maintaining public support and maintaining the occupation, which is undoubtedly an inconvenience, but reducing the inconvenience would lower the pressure on government.

Moreover, opposition to the proposed electoral procedure is not the only driving force within either the movement or public support. For many, hostility to Beijing and “the mainland” is at least as important. This does not make the movement as a whole simply a product of US foreign policy, aimed ultimately at fomenting the overthrow of the government in Beijing, but there are undoubtedly currents within it that would be candidates for such a role.

Groups such as “Civic Passion”, some of whose activists were reportedly involved in an attempt to break into the Legislative Council building recently, are fundamentally opposed to the re-unification with China after the end of British rule in 1997. Their defence of Hong Kong’s “unique culture” leads ultimately to a policy of separation from China and identification with “the West”. From this position they can present themselves as a far more radical alternative leadership, particularly in comparison to the official “opposition” parties or the academics and lawyers of “Occupy Central”, all of whom start from the assumption that a compromise must be reached.

Against that, Civic Passion’s argument that Beijing will never listen to reasoned and polite argument so a much more radical policy must be adopted, has a ring of truth to it. However, while a forcible occupation of key buildings, rather than streets, would raise the stakes and possibly provoke the government into another over-reaction, repeated calls for the UK government to intervene because it has a responsibility to enforce the democratic clauses in the Sino-British Agreement, shows a dangerous international orientation.

London is certainly not going to upset its relations with Beijing in defence of democracy in Hong Kong, an idea that never occurred to the British authorities during their 150 years of rule. Much more importantly, any appeal to the former colonial power strengthens Beijing’s assertion that “democracy” is just a Western propaganda weapon. Ultimately, that argument is aimed not at the seven million people of Hong Kong but the 1,350 million people of mainland China.

What next in Hong Kong?

There is little doubt that the occupation has lost much of the dynamism of its early weeks. Constant government and media argument that Beijing’s decision is final and that the occupation is, therefore, a pointless and increasingly isolated inconvenience, has begun to erode public support, at least as far as that is expressed in opinion polls. These now show over 80 percent think it is time to call a halt to the protest camps. At the same time, it is significant that a majority are still sympathetic to the students’ cause and contributions of food and water are still flowing in.

The student leaders have recognised the problem and embarked on a programme of, “going to the people”, holding local meetings to explain their campaign and answer questions. By comparison, the leaders of “Occupy Central” appear to be looking for an excuse to call off the occupations. Their big idea is to surrender themselves to the police on the grounds that they have indeed broken the law and defied court injunctions but are prepared to accept the consequences to prove their loyalty to the “Rule of Law”. This would, of course, also shift the limelight back to them and away from the students who have actually created and led the movement.

What is almost completely missing from the discussions over the way forward is any systematic socialist intervention. In an echo of the movements in the last century against Stalinism in Central and Eastern Europe, “left wing” is generally understood to mean, “pro-Beijing” and this is a real obstacle to the small forces of the Hong Kong left. To their credit, activists of Socialist Action, the Hong Kong section of the Committee for a Workers’ International, CWI, have attempted to distribute leaflets and magazines but report frequent hostility and even physical violence in response.

Overcoming this will depend on linking the current movement around the demands for democratic rights to the urgent needs of the great majority of Hong Kongers, and certainly the half who CY Leung wants to ignore, and has ignored until now. Crucial issues include the astronomically high cost of housing, inadequate social services, especially pensions, and low average wages. All of these issues require legislation for their solution but no progress will be made while only half of the 70 members of the Legislative Council are directly elected from local constituencies while 30 are sent there on behalf of a tiny elite of business and professional cliques.

Linking those issues to the students’ demands, forging links between the Occupiers and trades unions, tenants’ groups and other activist campaigns, offers a potential way forward not only for all those still camping out in the Admiralty district but for the vast majority of the people of Hong Kong.

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