Hong Kong’s protests flare in the shadow of the
U.S.-China rivalry
(Elson
Li/AP)
Asia’s financial
capital saw its eighth consecutive
weekend of political unrest. On Sunday, Hong Kong’s central
business and shopping districts were once more convulsed in chaos, with
clouds of tear gas choking the streets and even seeping into residential buildings. A day earlier, tens of thousands of anti-Beijing protesters
converged on the town of Yuen Long, a far-flung area close to the border
with mainland China, where, the previous weekend, pro-China thugs linked
to “triad” gangs attacked protesters with sticks and clubs.
“In recent days,
protesters have grown infuriated with Hong Kong’s police and government,
which protesters say are doing the bidding of Beijing rather than
protecting citizens and their rights,” reported my colleague
Shibani Mahtani.
Tensions have only
spiked after Hong Kong’s youthful and enterprising protesters filled the city’s streets
in mass demonstrations, forcing the local government to suspend a
controversial extradition bill that the protesters feared would allow
China to further squeeze civil liberties in the former British colony.
The protesters continue to call for democratic reform in the territory,
reiterating the long-standing demand for universal suffrage that would allow Hong Kongers to directly elect the city’s leader. (The current
system, where voters only elect a portion of the city’s legislative
assembly, is considered by many to be rigged in Beijing’s favor.)
With no clear path
out of the political crisis, the situation risks escalation. Chinese
authorities have hinted at military options to quell the “intolerable” scenes
of dissent. Meanwhile, angry and disaffected Hong Kongers are
increasingly resorting to more extreme measures.
“Protesters have also
become bolder and more provocative against riot police, ripping up bricks
from the sidewalks, fashioning shields from metal and wood and setting
fires to keep police back,” wrote Mahtani. “At one point Sunday, a
protester wearing a full-face gas mask picked up a canister of tear gas
that landed at his feet back and threw it back at officers.”
Some analysts watching from afar see in Hong Kong’s unrest
a sign of the times. “The Hong Kong ‘two
systems’ crisis reflects a broader, global clash not of civilisations but of ideologies, crudely defined – a contest between liberal, democratic
laws-based governance and authoritarian, nationalist-populist ‘strongman’
rule,” wrote Simon Tisdall, the Guardian’s foreign affairs commentator, earlier this month. “It is
the defining struggle of our age.”
That language
resonates all the more given the hardening fault line between China and
the United States. The Trump administration, angry at China’s trade
practices and convinced of the threat it poses as a rising power, has
unleashed an economic war that has led to a profound chill in
Sino-American ties. In Washington, a bipartisan anti-China consensus is
emerging, bucking the trend of polarization that otherwise shapes American politics.
Administration
officials decry the heavy hand of the Chinese state over its companies
and national economy. In Chinese President Xi Jinping, they have a
perfect foil — a ruthless autocrat who has only deepened the power of his
ruling cabal, ushered in chilling campaigns of
repression and leveraged China’s clout to pull smaller countries into
its ever-expanding geopolitical orbit.
“These are two
systems that are incompatible,” Bannon told the New York
Times, referring to the United States and China. “One side is going
to win, and one side is going to lose. This is the defining event of our
time, and 100 years from now, this is what they’re going to remember us
for.”
Curiously, in Bannon’s telling — and, more importantly, that ofPresident Trump — the cause for democracy in
Hong Kong barely features. Last week, Trump praised Xi for acting
“very responsibly” when asked by reporters for his reaction to the developments
there. He suggested Hong Kong’s upheaval was a domestic Chinese matter
that he was not too “involved” in. It was circumspect rhetoric for a politician who rarely is circumspect.
Of course, as he
waves the flag of “America First,” Trump has often let issues of liberal democracy and human
rights take a back seat. Hong Kong’s protesters and their
sympathizers abroad see a battle over universal rights and political
values. But for Trump, it’s likely just a footnote to a cutthroat
competition between two great powers.
PostEverything
columnist Dan Drezner warned of the dangers of embracing this line of
thinking, especially by the Trump White House. “China hawks need to
think this new Red scare policy all the way through to the end. If you
genuinely believe that China is a peer equal to the United States, that means we are back to bipolarity,” wrote Drezner. “That i mplies attracting
as many allies to the U.S. side as possible, and promoting the U.S.
system of governance as a model to others. The Trump administration is,
how you say, doing the exact opposite of that.”
“America’s friends
are choosing to dissociate themselves, believing their interests are
better served without American strength,” wrote Kori Schake, a former official in
the George W. Bush administration. “It seems the rest of the world is
losing faith that the U.S. is a reliable partner, sober and taking
others’ interests into account as well as its own.”
Hong Kongers protesting Beijing may take heed, too. They
have received little more than cursory statements of support and sympathy
from the outside world. The Trump administration, meanwhile, is more
preoccupied Chinese influence and investment in
the country and restricting the number of ordinary Chinese students
who can get visas to study in the United States.
Rather than a
stirring defense of democracy, analysts fear Washington is embarking on a
grim culture war.
“I lack confidence in
the ability of the American body politic, not just the Trump
administration, at this point in our political history — especially when
there’s so much racism, so much anti-immigration sentiment,” Susan Shirk,
who chairs the 21st Century China Center at the University of California at San Diego, told Politico. “It’s kind of bringing
out some of the worst impulses.”
