In January, five opposition legislators representing the five major electoral districts in Hong Kong resigned, triggering special elections scheduled for May 16. Frustrated by the lack of democratic development and interference from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Hong Kong’s political affairs, the opposition parties are hoping to turn the special by-election into a de facto referendum on democratic reform.
Beijing condemned the resignations, describing the planned referendum as a challenge to its authority. Most of the parties with ties to the CCP — such as the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, the Liberal Party and the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions — have let it be known they will boycott the elections.
Beijing turned up the rhetoric at the weekend, when Peng Qinghua (彭清華), head of China’s liaison office in the territory, suggested to Hong Kong delegates on the sidelines of the National People’s Congress in Beijing that the referendum plan somehow threatens social stability.
“This is a total violation of mainstream public opinion, which demands stability, harmony and development,” he said.
Former Hong Kong legislator Rita Fan (范徐麗泰), who is now a member of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, has called the referendum campaign a “farce” and a waste of taxpayer dollars.
It is ironic that Peng chose to apply the same language used in China to justify a lack of democracy — “stability, harmony and development” — to a rich and stable enclave of 7 million people. While a case could be made that such a focus is necessary when a country is still developing — and there is no doubt that, for the most part, China remains a developing country — this rationalization can hardly be applied to Hong Kong.
Equally ironic is that Beijing and the parties it backs in Hong Kong presume to somehow know “mainstream public opinion” before a referendum has been held, preferring to deride as “farce” and boycott a tool that would allow them to truly gauge public opinion.
Hong Kong has a mature enough political system for its people to know what they want. Beijing does not want such ideas to be aired publicly, not because it knows what’s best for Hong Kong residents, but because it considers those ideas dangerous. It’s not that Beijing fears chaos would erupt if universal suffrage were introduced in Hong Kong. What it fears is “contamination,” that once given voice such ideas — or demand for them — would spread like a brushfire into China proper. It wants to keep the democratic genie safely in the bottle.
This sends an important signal to Taiwan at a time when President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration is seeking to foster closer relations across the Taiwan Strait.
China is not changing to accommodate Hong Kong, as many believed it would pre-1997, and it is increasingly difficult to imagine it would behave any differently with Taiwan.
Hong Kong legislators and their continuing endeavor to bring into being a fully democratic and just Hong Kong in the face of threats and interference from Beijing should be applauded and fully supported.
“History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes” (attributed to Mark Twain). The USSR was the international bully during the Cold War as it sought to make the world safe for Soviet-style Communism. China is now the global bully as it applies economic power and invests in Mao’s (毛澤東) magic weapons (the People’s Liberation Army [PLA], the United Front Work Department, and the Chinese Communist Party [CCP]) to achieve world domination. Freedom-loving countries must respond to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), especially in the Indo-Pacific (IP), as resolutely as they did against the USSR. In 1954, the US and its allies
The fallout from the mass recalls and the referendum on restarting the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant continues to monopolize the news. The general consensus is that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has been bloodied and found wanting, and is in need of reflection and a course correction if it is to avoid electoral defeat. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has not emerged unscathed, either, but has the opportunity of making a relatively clean break. That depends on who the party on Oct. 18 picks to replace outgoing KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫). What is certain is that, with the dust settling
Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Shen You-chung (沈有忠) on Thursday last week urged democratic nations to boycott China’s military parade on Wednesday next week. The parade, a grand display of Beijing’s military hardware, is meant to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II. While China has invited world leaders to attend, many have declined. A Kyodo News report on Sunday said that Japan has asked European and Asian leaders who have yet to respond to the invitation to refrain from attending. Tokyo is seeking to prevent Beijing from spreading its distorted interpretation of wartime history, the report
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in China yesterday, where he is to attend a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin today. As this coincides with the 50 percent US tariff levied on Indian products, some Western news media have suggested that Modi is moving away from the US, and into the arms of China and Russia. Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation fellow Sana Hashmi in a Taipei Times article published yesterday titled “Myths around Modi’s China visit” said that those analyses have misrepresented India’s strategic calculations, and attempted to view