The EconomistAugust 22nd 2020 China 37T
he worldhas a right to be shocked by China’s rapid crushing of
civic freedoms in Hong Kong. But outsiders should not be sur-
prised. Western politicians spent years arguing that China, out of
pure self-interest, should grant Hong Kong greater autonomy, or at
least preserve liberties promised by the slogan “One Country, Two
Systems”. That was always a doomed effort. In part, pleas to grant
Hong Kong more freedoms reflected a misjudgment about the in-
centives that guide the swaggering-yet-paranoid hard men who
lead China’s Communist Party today. In part, Western arguments
were a bluff, based on half-veiled threats that multinational com-
panies, foreign investors and banks might walk away from Hong
Kong’s lucrative financial markets if the territory’s political free-
doms were too brutally curbed. China is now calling that bluff.
There is a self-reinforcing logic to China’s actions. A sweeping
national-security law imposed on Hong Kong in July has, by the
mere fact of its existence, created a new test of patriotism that citi-
zens must pass. Hong Kong’s election officers recently disqualified
a dozen pro-democracy politicians from seeking seats in the city’s
Legislative Council at elections scheduled for September. The can-
didates’ purported misdeeds included questioning the need for a
national-security law. Circular logic even saw opposition politi-
cians disqualified for pledging to vote against the government.
Just in case some missed the message, a day later the election, dur-
ing which opposition parties expected to make big gains, was post-
poned for a year, ostensibly as a pandemic-fighting precaution.
Chinese officials do not much care if Westerners are outraged.
Casting Hong Kong protesters as dupes, officials claim (and may
even believe) that the Trump administration is using the city’s
openness to attempt a “colour revolution”, in cahoots with such
democracy supporters as Jimmy Lai, a Hong Kong newspaper own-
er arrested and paraded through his newsroom in handcuffs by
200 policemen. Other officials are coldly cynical. They think that
lots of foreign governments and businesses mostly want to make
money in Hong Kong. Cynics also think that many expatriates qui-
etly opposed last year’s anti-government protests, some of which
were violent, and will welcome the silencing of troublemakers.
Nor do Chinese leaders seem scared that repression in Hong
Kong will cost them hearts and minds in Taiwan, though that
democraticislandwasoncepromised that, if it agrees to rule by
Beijing, it will have its own version of “One Country, Two Systems”.
On the mainland, senior figures have told Westerners that the Tai-
wanese will soon envy Hong Kong’s renewed prosperity. Chinese
leaders “are feeling quite triumphant over Hong Kong”, says a dip-
lomat. “They think it’s theirs and this is what they have to do.”
China’s rulers are half-right. Hong Kong is theirs. It also matters
more to them than it does to any foreign government (especially
with covid-19 battering economies). That includes the government
of Britain, the city’s former colonial master. Britain has offered a
path to citizenship for up to 3m Hong Kongers, drawing Chinese
rebukes. However, it is also anxious to promote trade with China,
especially after Brexit. On July 28th European Union foreign min-
isters expressed “grave concern” about the national-security law,
but could not agree on concrete, joint actions. Indeed, in Beijing,
some European diplomats privately call Hong Kong an obsession
of the Anglophone world. Japan is both unhappy about Hong
Kong, a close partner, and unwilling to do much about it.
Narrowly, China’s rulers will get away with crushing Hong
Kong’s freedoms. But in myriad, hard-to-quantify ways, they will
pay a price. Chinese officials are quick to allege impure motives
when outsiders express concern for Hong Kong. Britain is called
nostalgic for its empire. The Global Times, a party tabloid, calls Mr
Lai a “traitor to the Chinese race” for his past appeals for foreign
support. But it is not race treachery if Hong Kongers make com-
mon cause with democrats overseas. Nor is it racism if Westerners
find Hong Kong the most comprehensible place in China.
Party bosses and their apologists love to play up China’s excep-
tionalism. They call authoritarianism a reflection of China’s vast
size, its poverty, its history or even its collectivist, Confucian cul-
ture. Such excuses do not work as well in Hong Kong. A modern, re-
markably open world city, its hybrid culture includes many famil-
iar, Western-style freedoms. That legibility makes its fate
unusually important in shaping foreign perceptions of China.A question of trust
Chinese officials insist that last year’s protests were a bid to split
the motherland and seek Hong Kong’s secession. In truth, only a
small minority of Hong Kongers support independence, a hope-
less dream. Protesters last year talked more about democracy as a
way to preserve liberties meant to last until 2047. Those include a
raucous free press to hold the powerful to account, schools and
universities with a mandate to inculcate critical thinking in the
young, and a rule of law in which individuals have inalienable
rights. British colonial rulers denied Hong Kong real democracy.
But when given the chance to cast meaningful ballots, most voters
have consistently supported more direct elections. Now China’s
rulers have made their preference clear. They hate to be defied and
loathe losing elections, so are rolling Hong Kong’s freedoms back.
Western governments and people cannot alter China’s choices
in Hong Kong. But they are entitled to draw conclusions from
those decisions. China wants to become a high-technology super-
power, selling the world 5gnetworks, nuclear-power stations or—
who knows—a covid-19 vaccine. China’s diplomats want a seat at
the top table in global forums where standards and norms are
agreed upon. Its universities want to strike partnerships with aca-
demic institutions around the world. Those are all reasonable am-
bitions, but they depend heavily on trust. Repression in Hong
Kong will have an outsize impact on whether foreigners trust Chi-
na. That may anger party bosses. It should not be a surprise. 7Chaguan Past its Peak
China’s rulers will get away with repression in Hong Kong, but will pay a price in the long term