Before Hong Kong’s Legislative Council elections yesterday, all the political parties made every effort to attract votes, promoting their own policies while attacking opponents at various forums.
Meanwhile, another battle has taken place in the form of a social movement against the “national education program” for primary and secondary school students. When the Hong Kong government made no concessions even after 90,000 demonstrators took to the streets on July 29, three high school students from Scholarism, a student group, started a hunger strike in front of the Central Government Offices on Aug. 30. On Sept. 1, 40,000 demonstrators gathered there to show their support, and some demonstrators joined the strike. On Sept. 3, the first day of the school year, 10,000 students, parents, and citizens gathered there once again. At this point, the organizers announced their intention to escalate the demonstration, and launched a school-wide strike to boycott the new program.
The two events are not completely unrelated. The pan-democracy camp supports the anti-national education program campaign, while the pro-communist camp supports the program to teach Hong Kongers to identify themselves with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In addition, since Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying (梁振英) came to power on July 1, he and his staff have been haunted by illegal construction projects as well as corruption scandals. Leung did little to address these problems, causing housing prices to soar to unprecedented levels within a very short time. There was a rush on property buying and the government rushed out 10 major measures to get things under control, but these were of little use, and the public became increasingly testy. This situation originally benefited the pro-democracy camp’s election campaign, but then bizarre internal struggles started to emerge.
The power struggles mostly occurred between the Democratic Party and People Power. The former is a relatively large party, and the latter is a relatively small party that separated from the League of Social Democrats due to differing attitudes toward the Democratic Party. Earlier, the Democratic Party and People Power had opposing stances on the “five-constituency resignation” and “de facto referendum” through the re-elections in these constituencies. Later, when the Democratic Party compromised with Beijing on the political reform plan, the People Power called it pro-communist and a fake democratic party. It even upheld a slogan, “snipe at the Democratic Party,” during the District Council election last year, although it was essentially criticizing all the pro-democracy parties except for itself. As a result, it sacrificed its own electoral success. It was prepared to see pro-communist candidates win rather than help the Democratic Party’s candidates. This caused the Democratic Party to accuse People Power of being the “B Team” for the pro-communist Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong.
People Power has extreme views and does not attract moderate voters. It therefore relies on support from the pan-democracy camp voter base. It launched a large propaganda campaign against the Democrats, linking them to Chinese communists.
The Democratic Party, meanwhile, had adopted what were considered overly soft policies, and these turned off young voters. The youth vote, then, became the new target demographic for People Power’s campaign. The Democrats’ support ratings were significantly affected, causing them to declare war against People Power, accusing it of colluding with the CCP, receiving funds from pro-communist activists and allowing candidates to do business in China.
People Power fired back, accusing the Democratic Party, League of Social Democrats and Civic Party of receiving political donations from Next Media Group chairman Jimmy Lai (黎智英).
The political reform plan provided for five “super district councilors,” popularly elected legislators-at-large. Of course, only candidates from the larger parties really had any chance of winning these seats and the new system was regarded as being stacked against smaller parties. People Power then called on voters to cast “blank ballots” in the election, because it would rather lose the seats to pro-communist candidates than those from the Democratic Party, League of Social Democrats and Civic Party.
On the face of it, the pan-democracy parties share common beliefs: they all strive for universal suffrage and an end to single-party authoritarian rule, condemn the Tiananmen Square Massacre of 1989 and oppose Leung. Surely they can find common ground despite their differences if they really disagree on minor matters. Why must they destroy one another, forgetting the bigger picture? Is it possible there is more to this than meets the eye?
We have seen similar things happen within the pan-green camp in Taiwan. Perhaps they could learn something from what is happening in Hong Kong.
Paul Lin is a political commentator.
Translated by Eddy Chang
In the event of a war with China, Taiwan has some surprisingly tough defenses that could make it as difficult to tackle as a porcupine: A shoreline dotted with swamps, rocks and concrete barriers; conscription for all adult men; highways and airports that are built to double as hardened combat facilities. This porcupine has a soft underbelly, though, and the war in Iran is exposing it: energy. About 39,000 ships dock at Taiwan’s ports each year, more than the 30,000 that transit the Strait of Hormuz. About one-fifth of their inbound tonnage is coal, oil, refined fuels and liquefied natural gas (LNG),
On Monday, the day before Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) departed on her visit to China, the party released a promotional video titled “Only with peace can we ‘lie flat’” to highlight its desire to have peace across the Taiwan Strait. However, its use of the expression “lie flat” (tang ping, 躺平) drew sarcastic comments, with critics saying it sounded as if the party was “bowing down” to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Amid the controversy over the opposition parties blocking proposed defense budgets, Cheng departed for China after receiving an invitation from the CCP, with a meeting with
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) is leading a delegation to China through Sunday. She is expected to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing tomorrow. That date coincides with the anniversary of the signing of the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), which marked a cornerstone of Taiwan-US relations. Staging their meeting on this date makes it clear that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intends to challenge the US and demonstrate its “authority” over Taiwan. Since the US severed official diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 1979, it has relied on the TRA as a legal basis for all
To counter the CCP’s escalating threats, Taiwan must build a national consensus and demonstrate the capability and the will to fight. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) often leans on a seductive mantra to soften its threats, such as “Chinese do not kill Chinese.” The slogan is designed to frame territorial conquest (annexation) as a domestic family matter. A look at the historical ledger reveals a different truth. For the CCP, being labeled “family” has never been a guarantee of safety; it has been the primary prerequisite for state-sanctioned slaughter. From the forced starvation of 150,000 civilians at the Siege of Changchun
RSS