Hong Kong’s Challenge to Xi Jinping’s Iron Rule

The Editorial Board writes: "In earlier times, when China was more secluded from the world, Beijing might not have hesitated to go in and crack down on the protests, as it did at Tiananmen Square 30 years ago. But China today is a global economic power, and any direct intervention in Hong Kong would have global consequences ... . So far, China has limited its reactions." This is a good theory; the USG should base its policy on it.

I'm sure Xi enjoys the plentiful financial perks, and of course the power that comes from his position as head of the communist party. He has no reasonable alternative to using force to quash the demonstrations in Hong Kong. The only question that remains is how much force is he willing to apply and how many demonstrators are going to die. He is between a rock and a hard place and I'm glad I'm not in his shoes.

It is a shame how the editorial board downplays what happened in the H.K. airport. Do you really think the violence against the two men could be justified, even for a tiny bit, by an apology? Let along they never apologized to that Chinese reporter directly. The full apology, notably in English only in many blogs, tends to save their image before the international world. So why can't you just state the facts: "HK demonstrators turn violent against Chinese men." It's inhumane. It is against the freedom of speech that they are seeking. Period. No ifs. No buts.

Xi is a hardline, Comunist dictator, a man who has eliminated, often times through killings, any and all of those who do not show unfettered allegiance to him and his ideas. The party has eliminated term limits for Xi, as he demanded, and he is party leader for life. Think about that - to change their constitution so that Xi is in office FOR LIFE! That takes a congress who to the person, lives in fear of recriminations similar to what they saw during Xi's purge. The HK protests show the world, and hopefully people in China (if coverage is allowed) see this also. Xi's greatest fear is the economy shrinking, which leads to unemployment and unrest of the proletariat, which, if there is an uprising in China, could undermine Xi's rule and allow competitors to step up and take over. Let's all of us hope we see riots in China and Xi's reign ended.

Xi Jinping could go down in history as the most brilliant ruler of China if he could figure out how to recreate China as a multi-ethnic empire that accommodated the different cultures within it, as under the Manchus and how to create it as a multi-system state as advertised in the one country two systems formula. It will require real thinking outside the box and some salesmanship to other centers of power in the government, but if he can do it, the future could be bright.

How many years has Hong Kong functioned successfully under one country two systems? The protestors remind me of the Occupy Wall Street movement which has on leaders no clear objectives and accomplished? Shutting down the airport which is essential to Hong Kong’s economy was at best a mistake what would have happened if Occupy Wall Street had shut down JFK?

Dream on. China will either ignore the bad PR and crack done very harshly on Hong Kong with military force. or when things subside, use covert operatives to search out and eliminate any possible future leaders of this kind of revolt. This is past the point of no return, it's just what form Xi's revenge takes.

Hong Kong as it was is doomed. Sooner or later the Chinese military will get its marching orders and that will be that. The Communist Party cannot accept challenges to its rule and stay in power. So, challenges must be crushed.

What would #45 know, or even care, about the situation in Hong Kong? All he wants is "to make deals" with China, so that he can "look good," (look like a strong leader) among his base, and hopefully impressive in the eyes of the world. Thus his insane, unwarranted and economically destructive tariff capers. The same goes for the situations in Jannu and Kashmir, Venezuela, the Persian Gulf, and any other hotspot in the world. The clueless mentally ill person in the Oval Office is too busy tweeting hate messages based upon personal vendettas to be able to handle global diplomacy.

Isn't that ironic? Hong Kong folks are doing everything to stop a dictator from taking over their freedom. Americans are supporting a want-to-be dictator. Only once freedom is lost that you fully appreciate it. Wake up America!

You are grossly overestimating HK protesting including wildly exaggerating the number of participants. You are also grossly underestimating Chinese people’s absolute resolve of total sovereignty. Democracy without sovereignty, such as Japan, South Korea, Germany, means nothing. Look at how Americans (or Trump) humiliate Abe, Merkel. Better be sovereign.

August 15, 2019 All are best to forget the macro political contest and express the original cause that generated the confrontation. That is the idea of juridical control of the Hong Kong legal justice by Beijing. The fact is that this violates the one party and two systems agreement, as such the protesters have yet to be clearly appeased. The elephant in the China shop is old school and surely the matters must continue with loyalty to the agreements or origin for the best as understood and it fair rule to keep to enjoying the trust of good neighbors; while allowing the legal cases in jurisdiction to NK & China.

Carrie Lam should resign. Xi and HK officicals should come up with a replacement, someone who removes the extradition bill from the table and commits to peaceful discussions. Save face. That's what they all need.

The protest in Hong Kong will not go away soon, nor will it cease, and it will come to an end when China gets directly involved, whether by force or by economic means (like crash the Hong Kong dollar). It should be obvious (no one has pointed it out loud) that the majority of the protesters are young people, especially those were born in 1990s or late 1980. They are the forgotten generation in Hong Kong. This generation has experienced loss of jobs, low pays, no-chance of ever owning a house, no healthcare, no retirement benefits, and above all, no future. And their current predicament was decided by Hong Kong elites and British in 1984 when Margaret Thatcher negotiated the return of Hong Kong, which was intended to protect British interests, China's control and Hong Kong elites' grip on power. Since then, Hong Kong government continues to auction off lands to private developers for expensive housing, allows mainlanders to emigrate and buy up properties, and maintains low tax for business. The government neither cares nor does it try to address the deterioration of social environment in Hong Kong. As a result, these young people are now in a situation that they have nothing to lose as they rebel against the government, and they don't care whether China intervenes or not since their situation can not get worse either way. Expect an ugly end to this protest.

Interesting how some politicians in Hong Kong are hoping for the US and Britain to help Hong Kong achieve democracy. What they don't ask is why Britain never instituted democratic reforms in Hong Kong when they were in charge, which they could easily have done. And why the US never pushed its ally to do so if it cared so much about democracy in Hong Kong. Why now, if they already knew Hong Kong would eventually return to Chinese rule and could have done so 30 years ago ? Democracy is only a tool to be used to further the national interests of these countries when it suits them. The US fomented the coup in Iran in 1953 to depose the democratically elected government, in order to install the Shah, a dictator under their control. Saudi Arabia, the most undemocratic government in the world, is a US "strategic partner", and the US supplies the arms they use to suppress dissent. If the US government cares so much about democracy in foreign lands, why not start here ? By making all the noises about democracy and freedom when it clearly couldn't care less about it, the US is giving China even more reason to think that Hong Kong is being used as a pawn in the great game of global geopolitics.

Absolutely the United States and the Western world must pressure Xi to adhere to the agreement he made with Britain regarding autonomy in Hong Kong. We are witnessing millions of Hong Kongers being sucked into the black hole that is today's China. It should break the heart of every freedom loving human being.

The unfortunate truth is, the worst scenario can happen 'lawfully' if the HK government ask Beijing to intervene, and enforce martial law. So far, HK citizens have their freedom intact by successfully pushing back each and every erosions Beijing might imposed. I am afraid that freedom, together with the promised-then-denied democracy will be swept away in the aftermath of troops-in-HK.

While the editorial warns that China should not "crush dissent" the mainstream press and academia routinely do that here in the United States. China's tendency to censor originates with its government whereas the silencing of politically conservative voices among the American media and our colleges is cultural censorship. It is always those in power who censor, which they do for a solitary reason: to retain power.

Too bad Mr. Xi Jinping has to resort to enslaving his own people into complete submission...or else. How hypocritical can his 'communist system' be, when it was supposed to share widely the fruits of their labor, with no odious inequalities between the governed and it's bosses, the latter living in luxury and shielded from justice while corrupt, and abusing their brethren? Can't they see, and feel, that Xi's dictatorship is an insult to sanity, and self-respect, and that suppressing new ideas and imagination is an awful sense of justice? How insecure must Xi, and his supporters, be, to treat inhumanely their very own blood and spirit, just for a false sense of omnipotence? Can't Mr. Xi accept Hong Kong people as they are, free to think, speak and do, towards a better and peaceful society, and a lesson to draw from, to modify his current despotism? If China remains oppressive towards it's own folks, and sacrifices the individual on the altar of society, it will never go beyond being a second class nation, no matter how successful financially. If Xi becomes enlightened, and changes his aggressive attitude towards self-assertion, adding some humility for the little we know, how nice could that be!

What I've found troubling are the reports of undercover police from China attempted to sabotage the Hong Kong protesters, to legitimize its use of arms on its own citizens in the name of anti-terrorism. This further proves people in Hong Kong do have legitimate concerns for the potential injustice of the extradition law.

The 1992 US Hong Kong Policy Act extending more favorable trade terms to HK than otherwise available to mainland China provides US leverage to resolve this crisis diplomatically and preserve HK's special status of one country, two systems, if the US chooses to act. China has benefitted from this act by using HK as a backdoor for conducting its own trade with the US and others. The test questions are whether the Trump administration will employ this leverage in its on again off again trade war with China, and in the event Trump fails to act, whether the US Democrat presidential candidates and Democrat Congressional leadership go public demanding Trump do so.

Protesters morph into rioters and back fluidly in HK. There is only a slim hope that the rule of law will be maintained and it is thanks to incredibly restrained police work. Had this kind of violence happened in America, the cops here would have already killed a lot of people. Rioters are bunch of wicked violent dangerous bandits, that is the best way to describe them. The protesters, for their part, have adopted the means and looks of Cultural Revolution Red Guards. Please spare us the preachy liberal holier than thou sermon. Xi Jinping's One Country Two Systems is the solution to HK's special nature. It's understandable that after 150 years of colonial rule (none of which involved democracy) HKers don't know who they are, particularly the young. They have been raised hating a ghost, uneducated in the history and culture, Their intellectuals quote British literature rather than their 4000 years of culture. They may have "chinese" faces, but their brains have impregnated by western propaganda. Their notion of democracy is Mickey Mouse level. But they will find out that HK is nothing but a pawn on the chessboard of politics between US and China. HK is not that important. They will learn.

In their book, the Chinese Communist Party knows best what's good for their children and will not tolerate dissidence among them. And, XI Jinping, the new Chinese emperor for life, doesn't like this kind of loud disobedience exposed to the world. He sees this disruption of business as usual as a disrespect to himself by a bunch of rotten kids asking for something the mainland fears the most : freedom of speech and the right to be different. Like a Trojan Horse left by the British, is that possible that today's protesters in Hong Kong would change China's grip on its people ? Would Hong Kong protesters bring down the tyranny of the Chinese regime? We'll see what happen

Western democracies continue to believe in the fantasy that dictators will honor agreements even if they threaten their iron-hand rule. Yet time and again, these countries have violated both agreements and done whatever they feel the need to do to maintain their control. The Russian takeover of part of the Ukrain and, the Chinese takeover of Tibet and the persecution of the Uighurs, for example, all have occurred or are occurring and the impending takeover of Hong Kong will be no exception. More to the point, there is nothing that Western democracies can do about it, any more than other countries can influence our current attitudes towards immigrants, especially muslims. At one time, we thought the overthrow of dictators by democratically-minded revolutionaries would address these issues, but all we have gotten is a new dictator in thier place. Then we thought economic interdependence would give us the ability to influence these countries internally; that, as evidenced by the deteriorating relationships with China and Russia (not to mention Iran!), has also failed. At this point of time, all we can do is admonish, full well knowing our words will fall on deaf ears. Perhaps the upside is how much more we should appreciate living in a country where (except for the last two years) affords us the right to affect change peacefully and by the ballot box.

Long term, Hong Kong will be handed over to China whether its citizens like it or not. In my opinion, these protest serves to get democratic countries like the USA involved in hopes of migrating to these countries via Asylum claim, etc... So its kinda as if these protesters want China to send their troops in so USA can act via sanctions or other trade means. But China already went through Tienanmen square in the 1980s, it knows the consequences of using Troops to deal with such an issue.

I am sympathetic to the aims of the protesters. However we should see the one nation, 2 systems of governance policy for what it was. Namely a face saving ploy for UK so that it did not have to abandon the people of HK abruptly. Every one knew that eventually China's mode of governance would rule HK too. The best that HK citizens could hope for was progressive change within mainland China itself which would be shared by the citizens of HK. True, China is far more integrated with the world economy and uses HK to participate in the world economy which is essentially dominated by the capitalist system favored by the West. But China has recently witnessed how craven the finance bigwigs were to Saudi Arabia. A man tortured and killed on the almost certain orders of the Crown Prince and the bigwigs could not even snub the prince and refuse to attend the conference in Saudi Arabia. Only if the financiers in one voice threaten to pull out of HK and refuse to engage in any financial dealings with China will we see China backing off. I don't know how many would bet on that happening.

The "protests" began as a demonstration against a proposed law that would undermine justice in China's special administrative zone of Hong Kong. The protest has evolved into riots that endanger the personal safety of citizens and visitors, and do massive damage to the city's economy. This is a rebellion against law and order. China has been kind to Hong Kong by granting the city autonomy with the privileges, but not the obligations, of a province. After a hundred years of coddling by a benevolent colonial power and two decades of pampering by China, the riots may indicate that the citizens of Hong Kong lack the self-discipline needed for self-rule and democracy!

The real take away is that once humans experience freedom, they would rather die then give it up or succumb to authority. The rest of the authoritarian world should register this and realize that any real threat to American freedom, including gun control, will be met with overwhelming and relentless force. As far as Hong Kong, Xi cant lose or he will be permanently damaged and his house of cards will fall. If he gets too aggressive, he will promote further revolt. So get ready for a slow wear them down approach. The revolters will eventually wear down and become isolated, and slowly and individually marginalized by China. Many will probably seek asylum some where. China is showing their ideology though and that is a victory for the protestors. The world after this and their behavior on trade will look at China for a long time as a big Russia. That comes at a large cost. China's character and integrity are severely and permanently damaged now. They are no longer viewed as reliable or trustworthy. They have earned the title like their buddies in Moscow as Thugs.

“…any direct intervention in Hong Kong would have global consequences…” Like what? The U.S. and European business communities would stop sourcing from China? Consumers will boycott Chinese products? Please be honest. If the Chinese intervene in Hong Kong, they will suffer absolutely zero consequences.