After a Hong Kong protest attended by 510,000 people on July 1, the 14th anniversary of the territory’s return to Chinese rule, the Chinese-language Hong Kong Economic Journal’s former head Joseph Lian (練乙錚), who also served as a full-time consultant at the Central Policy Unit of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region during former Hong Kong chief executive Tung Chee-hwa’s (董建華) time in office, penned an article predicting Hong Kong’s future based on Beijing’s response to the July 1 protest.
Lian wrote that the biggest problem would probably be that “because the three-person team in charge of political reform [comprising Hong Kong Chief Secretary for Administration Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥), Hong Kong Secretary for Justice Rimsky Yuen (袁國強) and Hong Kong Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Raymond Tam (譚志源)] is but mere show, the deep-seated problems caused by the long-standing political differences between Hong Kongers and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have already appeared. As mentioned in the white paper [on Hong Kong, recently issued by Beijing], the leaders in Beijing have full practical control over Hong Kong. “Beijing leaders” do not include people like [President of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong] Jasper Tsang (曾鈺成), who are merely the agents of the leaders in Beijing and Hong Kong.”
Beijing’s response to the protest came in the form of an editorial in the Hong Kong-based Chinese-language Global Times, which said that the reason many Hong Kongers have turned into supporters of the pan-democracy camp is that a lot of their former feelings of superiority have been challenged, and Western-style democracy has become the main thing that separates them from people on the Chinese mainland.
This ridiculous point of view also applies to Beijing’s views of Taiwan’s new civic movement. However, since Beijing still does not have control of Taiwan, it cannot use such disdainful language to insult Taiwanese.
Lian said that Tsang is an “underground member” of the CCP and that before 1997, he established the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, a pro-Beijing party that supports the CCP.
Tsang graduated from the University of Hong Kong and received a Western-style education, so he did not deny allegations that he was an “underground member” of the CCP during legislative questioning. Tsang also gets on better with Hong Kong’s pan-democracy camp than other politicians and at times disagrees with Beijing’s ultra-leftist methods.
Although once thinking of running for chief executive himself, he was immediately shut down by Beijing because he is not as crafty as Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying (梁振英).
Lian said in the article that regardless of how future chief executives are chosen, they will all be controlled by Beijing and form part of a new system made up of a few new patriots with stronger political views than Leung.
Lian also said that once this transition period is over, the people who had Beijing’s favor will have served their purpose and will be kicked out of the political arena. The new rulers of Hong Kong, and the entire ruling class, including the political and financial realm, will be completely replaced by people from Beijing. Those with power in China all want a piece of the action in Hong Kong and this is a process that will go on relentlessly for the next two or three decades.
An official report on political reform in the territory recently submitted to Beijing by the Hong Kong government was conducted fully in line with Beijing’s wishes.
The report insisted on having a nominating committee responsible for choosing and deciding which politicians could run for office based on whether or not they “love the country [ie, China] and love Hong Kong” and even had the nerve to claim that this represented mainstream opinion.
If “Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying” were to be replaced with “President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九)” and “Hong Kong” changed to “Taiwan,” it might show Taiwan’s future if the public continue to do nothing about controlling their own future by failing to resist the CCP.
Tsang has a limited number of years in his political career, and Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing’s (李嘉誠) money is constantly being moved out of Hong Kong.
Taiwanese businesspeople and politicians, especially those with close links to local factions aligned with Ma as well as those who are extremely close to the CCP, should look closely and learn from what is going on in Hong Kong. They cannot afford to sacrifice the welfare of the Taiwanese and future generations for their own short-term interests.
On July 7, Hong Kong’s Apple Daily reported a 20 percent increase in the number of Hong Kongers applying to move to other countries because of a tightening on freedoms in the territory. However, many young people in Hong Kong took issue with the Apple Daily over the report and accused them of having a negative impact on the mood in the territory. These young people are determined to battle the CCP to the very end.
For many people, emigrating is impossible and the only choice they have is to stay in Hong Kong, despite how bad things might get under Beijing’s influence. This is something that Taiwanese need to give a lot of thought to.
Paul Lin is a political commentator.
Translated by Drew Cameron
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