Whether out of sheer ignorance or a diffuse animosity towards China, the West's political and media elites have reflexively embraced Hong Kong's rioters as though they were the heroic, revolutionary waifs of Les Miserables. Indeed, the Hong Kong herd has even gone so far as to sing -- laughably out of key -- that show's popular anthem, Can You Hear the People Sing, as though they were kindred spirits with Eponene and Marius. As though.
Eponene was not among the Hong Kong millennial heroes
Alas, the Hong Kong rioters' Western cheering section has overlooked or ignored a critical aspect of the now two-month long uprising -- i.e., it has all the features of an anarchist revolution. Which is especially odd, since it takes place in one of the most thriving, prosperous, and attractive cities in the world.
When an organized force engages in attacks on a government's law enforcement personnel and their headquarters; smashes their way into the government's legislative headquarters to vandalize it; shuts down a city's subway and traffic systems, thus preventing the citizenry from getting to work or engaging in ordinary commercial activities; occupies the city's international airport, forcing the cancellation of flights for extended periods of time and subverting the city's economy; and seizes and beats journalists and other citizens on mere suspicion of surveillance activity; then that mobilized force is engaged in a form of revolution. What color it takes is anyone's guess.
If the Hong Kong marauders acknowledged their revolutionary status and accepted the consequences, it would be one thing. On the contrary, however, they expect to be treated like a harmless band of frolicking youth, even while they engage in violent and grossly disruptive insurgency.
The most famous Chinese revolutionary of them all, Mao Zedong himself, aptly explained: "A revolution is not a dinner party." But Chairman Mao's admonition is entirely lost on Hong Kong's generation of snowflake revolutionaries, who would have dropped out of the Long March even before it crossed the Hunan border.
Thus, the Hong Kong insurgents whine and squeal like wounded sheep when the beleaguered police have the temerity to meet their violent operations with even minimal force. After a single demonstrator suffered a "severe eye injury" when the police fired a beanbag projectile -- quelle horreur! -- the insurgents wailed as though PLA tanks and mortars had opened indiscriminate fire on thousands. Apparently, the rioters and their Western cheerleaders insist that not even minimal means of force can be used by police in responding to marauding mobs occupying the city's airport and lifeline to the world. What do they expect, after all, canapes and cocktails?
As this is written, there are some signs that the mass protest is losing momentum. More and more ordinary Hong Kong citizens are insisting that "enough is enough." Whether the protests will whither away any time soon, however, remains to be seen.
Although protest leaders have offered a tepid apology for the disastrous consequences of the airport seizure, they continue to insist that the City must accede to their primary demands, including: the removal of Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam; the release and exoneration of all protesters arrested for criminal offenses; an investigation of the police response to the uprising (but not the uprising itself!); and a repudiation of the factual declarations that the demonstrators engaged in "riots."
Inasmuch as the Hong Kong government (not to mention Beijing) will certainly continue to reject these unrealistic demands, continued demonstrations can be expected to plague Hong Kong. The key question is whether the insurgents now recognize that they must tone down their demonstrations to a level that is tolerable to both the SAR and Beijing, not to mention ordinary Hong Kong citizens.
Heretofore, Xi Jinping has deemed it prudent to withhold direct intervention by the PLA or other mainland forces, in recognition of the howls of outrage that would issue from the U.S., UK, and other Western governments and media if such action occurs. Nonetheless, it is doubtful that Xi's patience is inexhaustible.
The severe chaos and lawlessness transpiring in Hong Kong -- which is after all part of China -- do not reflect well on Xi's image as a forceful Helmsman (and successor to Mao) in Beijing. There might well be hard-liners on the Standing Committee of the Politburo, or in the PLA, who are looking over Xi's shoulder with repressed frustration. Thus, continued extreme provocation by the insurgents in Hong Kong might yet force Xi's hand towards intervention as a matter of political self-preservation.
Western governments, and U.S. congressmen, seemingly bent on provoking China with ill-considered declarations of support for continued insurgency, would do well to consider the potentially disastrous consequences of their feckless grandstanding.
Before the recent disruptions, Hong Kong has enjoyed the reputation of one of the most prosperous, efficient, and advanced cities in the world. It ranks seventh in the world, for example, in Human Development Index (HDI), compared to No. 13 for the U.S. Its economy has been ranked as the most free and competitive in the world. It ranks at or near the top in such worldwide statistical indices as STEM scores, IQ averages, public safety, and life expectancy.
This is the "oppressive" environment that the heroic Hong Kong militants are recklessly subverting with their prolonged campaign of disruption and defiance.
Meanwhile, posturing U.S. politicians encourage the demonstrators in expanding their objectives from the reasonable goal of spiking the extradition legislation (which they have accomplished) to the wholesale reformation of the Hong Kong government into a Western-style democracy. However desirable that might be in theory, it is simply unfeasible under current realities. Indeed, pushing for such unrealistic demands may result in less, rather than more, freedom for the people of Hong Kong.
Hong Kong is part of China as a matter of national sovereignty. China, while no longer a genuinely communist state, retains a totalitarian political system even while it embraces a mixed economic system with a heavy dose of capitalism. Yet China has heretofore tolerated a degree of personal, economic, and cultural freedom in Hong Kong that exceeds not only that allowed in Mainland China but, indeed, in most countries in the world. The excesses of the Hong Kong millennial mobs run the risk of undermining, rather than expanding, Hong Kong's overall prosperity and personal (if not political) freedoms.
Addendum: A report just published by Reuters demonstrates by its own terms that the establishment Western media is publishing fake news to create the mythology that the Hong Kong marauders have the overwhelming backing of HK citizens. The report is headlined: "Hong Kongers rally against government under stormy skies." [emphasis added] But if one reads to the end, the story itself confirms instead that a far larger crowd (either 476,000 (claimed) or 108,000 (police est.) gathered to show support for the SAR government and the police than gathered to support the millennials continuing protest against the government (either 22,000 (claimed) or 8,300 (police est.). This is merely one of countless stories demonstrating that the mainstream western media are skewing and twisting this story to portray the insurgent mobs as the virtuous voice of the Hong Kong people overall, while portraying the admirably restrained police response as though it were the Czar's dragoons crushing the innocent starving masses with sabres in a scene from Dr. Zhivago. It is an open question whether the PRC-controlled outlets like People's Daily and Xinhua might actually be providing more accurate coverage on this story than the Western media.
Hmm....you speak with such authority as if you are an eyewitness of what's happening in Hong Kong??
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