China's treatment
of Hong Kong is a lesson for Australia
So what is Beijing doing, exactly?
"No one should be under any
illusions about the objective of the Communist Party leadership – its
long-term, systematic infiltration of social organisations, media and
government.
Anson Chan,
the "Iron Lady" of Hong Kong, says that the Chinese government's
treatment of her city is an object lesson for Australia and the world.
"Because,"
she tells me in Melbourne, "I don't think Australians understand the sort
of country they're dealing with. Look at the way they are infiltrating, even in
Australia.
"Australia
is a very open society so it wouldn't occur to most people the designs of the
one-party state. And it wouldn't have occurred to the people of Hong Kong until
we experienced it first hand."
Chan has a
great deal of first-hand experience. As Hong Kong's chief secretary from 1993
to 2001, she occupied a position of trust unique in modern history.
And although
she was a British appointment, the Chinese trusted her to stay on to be the top
civil servant under the first Chinese regime to rule the city since the Opium
Wars.
She retired
with an outstanding reputation for impartiality and professionalism. Now 76,
she could still be enjoying an easy retirement but was goaded into public
activism by the encroachments of the Beijing government.
She is in
Australia with another Hong Kong activist, longtime campaigner for civil
liberties Martin Lee, to make the case for Hong Kong's autonomy, and will
meet Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop, among others.
Yet Chan is
no revolutionary: "All we want is to hold Beijing to its promises in the
Basic Law," the Hong Kong constitution written at the time of the handback
to China in 1997.
The Basic
Law, promulgated by Beijing, allowed China to resume sovereign ownership of the
territory, yet preserved Hong Kong's liberties from the authoritarian boot heel
of Beijing for 50 years.
It gave
force to the concept of "One Country, Two Systems", a brilliant piece
of entrepreneurial statesmanship by China's paramount leader of the time, Deng
Xiaoping.
By the time China's infiltration of
Australia is readily apparent, it will be too late
Anson Chan
wants his successor, current president Xi Jinping, to return to
Deng's vision. "You are destroying Hong Kong if you continue to chip away
at 'One Country, Two Systems' and take away its high degree of autonomy."
Beijing
fails to appreciate that Hong Kong's value is not in its hardware of buildings
and infrastructure but in its software, she says.
"Why is
Hong Kong still the pre-eminent finance centre of China? Because of its
software – the rule of law, basic rights such as freedom of speech, a level
playing field and transparency and accountability," she says.
"China
underestimates the depth of feeling in Hong Kong, especially among the younger
generation," an attachment to local rights that gave rise to the
youth-based Umbrella Movement of 2014, when demonstrators protected
themselves against police teargas with umbrellas.
So what is
Beijing doing, exactly?
"No one
should be under any illusions about the objective of the Communist Party
leadership – its long-term, systematic infiltration of social organisations,
media and government.
"Nobody
knows how many Communist Party members there are in Hong Kong – there are a lot
of underground cadres, their identities secret even from each other.
"They
have infiltrated into NGOs, into traditional clansmen's associations, into
women's welfare societies who were purely interested in doing good, who now
roll out the party line, all in direct breach of One Country, Two
Systems."
Chan cites
attempts by Beijing to impose a so-called "national education"
curriculum of pro-Communist Party propaganda, and an attempt to assert
authority over the Hong Kong courts, both of which collapsed in the face of
protests on the streets of Hong Kong.
But most
shocking, she says, is the revelation that the mainland authorities have
kidnapped Chinese publishers, at least one of whom was taken forcibly and
secretly from Hong Kong to the mainland to be disciplined for the crime of
publishing books critical of the Beijing leadership.
"Until
then," says Chan, "everyone in Hong Kong thought that if you don't
break the laws of Hong Kong you are safe on Hong Kong soil. People now
understand that you are no longer safe in our own beds on home soil."
It's an
extrajudicial assertion of power that is "a flagrant breach of everything
in the Basic Law and the independence of the courts," she says. "We
are still waiting for the Chief Executive to give Hong Kong people a guarantee
that this will never happen again.
"The
rest of the world should pay attention to what's happening in Hong Kong."
Why?
"Because
if China can, with impunity, walk away from its treaty obligations to Hong
Kong, what does that say about China's attitude to its treaty obligations to
other countries?"
Australia
should be alert, she says, to Chinese Communist Party infiltration on its soil.
The Chinese language media in Australia are dominated by party propaganda
organs, their Confucius Institutes are propaganda tools,
and "they will try to buy off political candidates and
politicians" too with cash and other inducements. It's standard
stuff, she says.
Chan wants
to discourage xenophobia but she wants to encourage wariness of Chinese
Communist Party aims and techniques. "You have to define your own
strategic and moral line. Consistently and constantly, in private and in
public, reaffirm your own values.
"You
can't ignore China – it's too big to ignore – it's a vast country with
vast potential. But what are your rules for engaging with it? It's a country
with vastly different core values."
How should
we understand China's forceful territorial claims on maritime areas also
claimed by its neighbours? How does its "soft power" infiltration fit
with its "hard power" assertions?
"I
think it's all part of a well-thought-through, long-term strategy to
dominate."
As
the aphorism says, forewarned is forearmed. Chan's final word of warning:
"By the time China's infiltration of Australia is readily apparent, it
will be too late."
Peter Hartcher is international editor SMH Illustration: John Shakespeare
Peter Hartcher is international editor SMH Illustration: John Shakespeare
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