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Our magazine this week
focuses on the media
war being waged by the Hong Kong protesters.
As the
cover story notes, their social
-network-led leaderless resistance appears
to be working so far, at least in Hong Kong
and in the Western world.
The city's authorities have withdrawn the
extradition bill, and some
Western media report
that Chief Executive Carrie Lam may soon leave
office.
The notion that she could be removed
by "people power"
poses a potentially huge threat
to Beijing's rule in the mainland.
We should not, however, underestimate Beijing's
ability to control the
mainland media.
Observers have reported that the protesters
in Hong Kong
receive little sympathy in the mainland.
Public opinion is divided along
the border. Given that Beijing controls military forces in Hong Kong,
we
cannot rule out the possibility of a forceful
crackdown by the People's
Liberation Army, the People's Armed Police, or both.
The average mainland citizen has very little access to information on the
situation in Hong Kong.
Their window on events is limited mainly to
televised reports by the state media showing brutal
scenes of destruction
of public facilities and shops, or violence against police officers.
Such a skewed interpretation of what is actually
happening could prompt
ordinary Chinese citizens
to support a possible crackdown in the future.
If the protest movement is to be more successful,
the activists in Hong
Kong need to increase
their efforts to win the moral support of the
mainlanders.
In other China-related news, we bring you two
interesting stories on
Beijing's control over the
media- and tech-related industries.
Big
Brother's gaze is falling even on the video
games of the mighty Tencent
and the content
being shared over TikTok, the short-video unicorn.
Although China has overtaken the U.S. in the
number of tech unicorns,
those Chinese giants
are always under the control of the authorities
to
some extent -- a situation that is only exacerbated
by the ongoing tech
war between
Beijing and Washington. Huawei's attempt
to be less dependent
on U.S. engineers is
also a development well worth watching.
The Great
Decoupling is underway, indeed.
Shigesaburo Okumura
Editor-in-chief, Nikkei Asian Review
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