Beijing is clearly calling the shots now in Hong Kong and it has a deadline for breaking the cycle of weekly protests: the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic on 1 October. So writes one of the most perceptive commentators on our city of sorrows. Antony Dapiran wrote the prescient book, “City of Protests”, published two years ago. “Beijing does not want violent protests marring the ceremony.”
Dapiran, a lawyer and fluent Mandarin speaker who divides his time between Hong Kong and the capital, writes Beijing will continue to rely on the police to suppress the protests. Recent bluster about deployment of the People’s Liberation Army should be seen as a none-too-subtle reminder rather than a genuine threat. The police strategy will be to arrest people, perhaps hundreds at a time, who will face serious charges such as rioting. “The hope is that this strategy will result in the front-line protestors being removed from the battlefield and the majority of others will be deterred from further protests.” The problem is that the demonstrators have adopted a Bruce Lee-style “Be Water” tactic. They move quickly, dispersing before they can be arrested. The police need to be nimble to catch them.
Dapiran argues that the heart of the protests is political, not economic. “Action must be taken to convince Hong Kongers that their Government is listening to them.” The extradition bill must be withdrawn, an independent commission of inquiry set up to heal the rift between the police and community and Beijing must restart political consultations on election of the Chief Executive by universal suffrage. “Alas, Beijing’s latest signals suggest that no such compromises are likely. This does not bode well for the prospects of a resolution to Hong Kong’s predicament.”
Also writing in ChinaFile (www.chinafile.com) Ho-fung Hong says, “No matter how these protests end, Hong Kong will be radically different. The Government might once again successfully extinguish the protests through mass arrests and police brutality. But larger, more militant, protests are destined to erupt in the future. Hong Kong is seeing the rise of a long resistance.”
Author Dapiran writing in The Guardian at the beginning of the protests said now it is different. “Public opinion seems to be much more solidly behind (the protestors) this time. The visceral response of the public is due to deep issues: in the past Hong Kong has distinguished itself on the basis of wealth. Hong Kong was rich while the rest of China was struggling to bring its population out of poverty. However, over the 20 years since the 1997 hand-over, as Hong Kong’s economy has drifted and China’s has boomed, that distinction has failed to hold. Pride rooted in materialism has been replaced by a deeper pride among Hong Kongers based on this notion of ‘Hong Kong Core Values’, freedom of the media and individual, rule of law, right to protest and so on.” The proposed extradition bill cut right across this. “It threatened to blur the line between the Hong Kong and mainland justice systems. The people are protesting against a threat to their very identity as Hong Kongers. By taking to the street they were expressing their dissatisfaction by exercising one of these key rights, ‘I am a Hong Konger, therefore I protest.'”
Dapiran’s book, “City of Protests”, explores the idea of protests as an integral part of Hong Kong’s identity. Its prescience is clear when you remember it was written more than two years ago.
He writes today that in the past five years “the Hong Kong Government has steadily tightened the screws on dissent in the city… using the cover of the legal system”. On the extradition bill, “people felt it could only be the hand of Beijing behind this… Otherwise why would it be done in such a roughshod fashion..?” Carrie Lam is “politically clueless” because she has never had to face a real election. Many jokes about the lady we call the Lam duck say she doesn’t know how to catch the MTR or where to buy toilet paper.
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