IT WAS in a hotel in Kowloon, Hong Kong, that
Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old American, popped up on June 9th, to reveal
himself as the whistle-blower on a worldwide surveillance network run by his
country’s National Security Agency. To many Americans, and some Chinese too, it
seems bizarre that someone fearful for his safety and freedom should flee
America to take refuge in a part of China. But as he put it: “The people of
Hong Kong have a long tradition of protesting in the streets, of making their
views known.” Hong Kong is a unique part of China. Mr Snowden, the leading
actor in a global drama, is now also part of a local subplot, about whether
that uniqueness can be preserved.
Even as a British colony, Hong Kong was an in-between place.
More Chinese dissidents than Western ones have fled there, but Mr Snowden is
not the first to regard it as a haven for rebels seen as criminals at home. When
it was handed back to China in 1997, it was guaranteed its own legal system for
50 years, with freedoms of speech and assembly. No other place in China marks
the anniversary on June 4th of the killing of protesters in Beijing in 1989.
This year, in pouring rain, at least 54,000 people (by the conservative
estimate of police) took part in the annual candlelit vigil in Hong Kong’s
Victoria Park; organisers claimed 150,000 turned up. Some of those will soon
join in another annual ritual of protest meant to defend such freedoms—a march
on July 1st, the anniversary of the handover.
They may be free to speak. But Hong Kong’s people have never
been able to choose their leaders in a fair election. Britain used to dispatch
colonial governors. Now labyrinthine procedures ensure that China can handpick
the “chief executives” who have replaced them. For most of the 7m people in
Hong Kong the lack of democracy is bothersome and unfair, but less of a worry
than the high rents. A small but vocal fraction, however, worries very
much—because it regards democracy not only as Hong Kong’s right but also as a
necessity to guarantee Hong Kong’s freedoms. China has promised eventual “universal
suffrage”, but the definition of that often-postponed goal grows ever murkier.
Where free speech is allowed but meaningful voting is not,
other ways of posing questions and measuring popular support become powerful
tools. To China’s rulers, Hong Kong’s marches, sit-ins and opinion polls look
like the thin end of a wedge, forcing in a discreet but dangerous bit of
democracy. This explains some hysterical responses to a rather wonkish movement
that took a step forward on June 9th. After months of planning, 700 activists
gathered to organise a campaign for genuine democracy, under the banner “Occupy
Central” (echoing “Occupy Wall Street”, Central being the city’s main financial
district).
Dreamed up by a law professor, Benny Tai Yiu-ting, the
movement has earmarked half a dozen dates stretching into next year when the
whole of Hong Kong will be invited to decide what should be the movement’s
specific demands. Then, in July next year, just before new rules are to be
decided for the next “election” for the chief executive in 2017, the results of
these deliberations will be put to the public in a straw poll. If the
government rejects the outcome, 10,000 or more Hong Kongers will occupy
Central, blocking traffic and commerce, until their will be done. A separate
initiative launched in 2010 was supposed to trigger a de facto referendum on
democracy. It backfired, failing to rouse the masses while dividing the
pro-democracy political parties. Occupy Central is designed to circumvent the
parties altogether.
It has struck a nerve. Hong Kong’s chief executive, Leung
Chun-ying, warns that if the movement takes to the streets, the outcome won’t
be “peaceful”. China Daily, a Beijing newspaper, says “it is very likely
to trigger violent confrontation between the participants and inconvenienced
bystanders.” Ching Cheong, a journalist who knows both sides well, says he
fears violence on the scale of 1989.
Mr Leung is not on strong ground when he objects to the use
of informal polling to determine a political outcome. That is how he got his
job last year. Opinion polls showed how much damage scandals had done to his
rival, Henry Tang Ying-yen, China’s first choice and hence seen as a shoo-in.
Mr Leung’s surprising victory disrupted a long-standing alliance between the
upper crust of local tycoons, solidly behind Mr Tang, and the rest of Hong
Kong’s pro-Beijing camp. It was almost as if the people had picked their own
man. To scotch any idea that in 2017 they might actually do so, Qiao Xiaoyang,
a senior legislator from Beijing, in March travelled to Shenzhen, just over the
border in China proper, and asked Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing lawmakers to join
him. He confirmed that the plan for 2017 is to use a nominating committee much
like the unrepresentative 1,200 “electors” of 2012. Candidates who “oppose the
central government” will be excluded.
The disunited front
In local council elections the pro-Beijing parties have been
winning the honest way. In 2011 they took home 55% of the popular vote and,
being excellent grassroots organisers, a far greater share of seats. But with
the rupture of the tycoon-Beijing alliance, it is tougher to do this for the
top job. A string of minor scandals has hobbled Mr Leung’s government, starting
with an unauthorised trellis built on one of his houses. These were merely
distracting until May 24th, when Barry Cheung Chun-yuen, the man who ran Mr
Leung’s successful campaign, had to quit his cabinet. A loss-making commodities
exchange he ran had folded, and within days he was under criminal investigation.
Mr Leung hardly needs Occupy Central’s help to “paralyse” his government.
The democrats, usually the more fractious side of the
political divide, seem for once to be finding a few things to agree on.
Universal suffrage, for one, which this time they might be able to define
clearly enough to stick to. And, for another, the defence of those freedoms
that so appealed to Mr Snowden. Banyan for The Economist
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