Violent clashes between police and protesters broke out in the Mong Kok neighborhood of Hong Kong on Monday last week amid Lunar New Year celebrations, sparking heated debate. Irrespective of where they might stand on the issue, many people consider this as a sign that Hong Kong has entered a period of political unrest.
However, the incident has greater significance when seen in a larger context: It clearly shows that Hong Kong is at the threshold of an important democratic breakthrough.
While Hong Kong has never developed full democracy, many Hong Kongers became politically active during the Umbrella movement in 2014, in which protesters demanded universal suffrage and a direct vote for the territory’s chief executive.
Some people called the Mong Kok incident the “fishball revolution,” in reference to the government’s efforts to crack down on unlicensed fishball vendors, which culminated in warning shots being fired by the police. Others have compared it with the Kaohsiung Incident in Taiwan in 1979, when a group of dangwai (黨外, “outside the party”) activists organized a pro-democracy demonstration to commemorate Human Rights Day. The two incidents are quite different, especially in terms of the ensuing arrests and questioning. While Hong Kong has an independent judicial system, at the time of the Kaohsiung Incident, Taiwan was under martial law.
The Mong Kok incident has shone a light on Hong Kong’s upcoming Legislative Council election, as it remains unknown whether the more radical groups, including Hong Kong Indigenous, which participated in the Umbrella movement and the Mong Kok clashes, can form a party to run against the pro-democracy camp and the pro-Beijing camp dominating the local political scene.
Hong Kong could learn a lot from what Taiwan went through in its early stages of democratization. In 1960, a group of activists in Taiwan connected with the Free China Journal, led by Lei Chen (雷震) and Yin Hai-kuang (殷海光), tried to form an opposition party, believing that democracy could be brought about through peaceful reforms. Their efforts were relentlessly repressed by the one-party state of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
The dangwai movement that followed consequently adopted a more violent approach, inevitably causing more divisions within the society and more polarized stances in the ensuing years.
In Taiwan’s history of democratization, there have been two consistent trends in the movements that contributed to the nation’s democracy. One is the deconstruction of political myths, including those surrounding former presidents Chiang Kai-shek (蔣中正) and Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), as well as scrutinizing the KMT’s party-state ideology. The other trend is that of localization, namely making Taiwan, instead of “mainland” China, the subject of political concerns.
Last month’s presidential and legislative elections saw political uprisings that developed around these two movements become so widely embraced that the KMT finally lost its influence it had achieved through myth-making propaganda, marking a significant new chapter for Taiwan’s democracy.
Perhaps Taiwan’s experience of democratization would be of some help to Hong Kongers, specifically in deconstructing political myths and localizing political concerns.
Hong Kongers have often been teased for being “economic animals” for their political apathy, but this stereotype could soon change, as a great opportunity has arisen for them to show the world that they can be another role model for democracy in the Chinese-speaking world.
Ku Chung-hwa is on the board of directors for the New School for Democracy.
Translated by Yu-an Tu
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