While President Donald Trump plotted to annex Greenland, China’s Xi Jinping – a serious man – spent August weighing a decision that could shape the future of his country, and its relations with the world, for years to come.
It has nothing to do with purchases of US soybeans or other concessions to give Trump a face-saving way out of his self-defeating trade war with Beijing. For now, Xi appears inclined to sit back and watch Trump’s mounting panic over the potential election-year consequences of his folly.
After more than 12 weeks, the mass demonstrations in Hong Kong are undiminished in strength. Getty
Instead, Xi is considering whether to act on his regime’s repeated threats to crush Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement by force. He has few other options to stop the mass demonstrations that have shaken the city this summer, which after 12 weeks are undiminished in strength. That’s because he has no intention of meeting the protesters’ demands for the resignation of Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing executive and the staging of free elections.
And he has something of a deadline: On October 1, huge celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the founding of his Communist regime are planned on the mainland. Counter-demonstrations in Hong Kong could spoil the show and cause Xi a humiliating loss of face.
Xi’s media and military commanders have been threatening intervention for weeks. They’ve tweeted propaganda videos of People’s Liberation Army troops using machine guns against “rioters”; they’ve massed elements of the paramilitary People’s Armed Police in the neighbouring city of Shenzhen, where they’ve been carrying out exercises. Fresh soldiers were conspicuously rotated to the existing PLA garrison in Hong Kong last week.
Advertisement
The assumption among many Western analysts has been that Xi is hoping that the mere threat of force will cause the movement to retreat. So far, it hasn’t. On Saturday, protesters again battled police in Hong Kong’s streets after a planned march was banned. A week ago, more than 200,000 people formed human chains across the territory to reiterate the demand for direct elections. The week before that, an estimated 1.7 million – nearly a quarter of the population – turned out.
The regime has tried less conspicuous measures of force, such as dispatching gang members to beat up protesters and infiltrating marches with provocateurs. It has put pressure on Hong Kong businesses to discipline employees who join the marches. On Friday, it arrested several of the best-known opposition leaders. So far, nothing has worked.
Xi knows that the costs of intervention, or of an imposition by Hong Kong authorities of a state of emergency, would be large, which is why it hasn’t already happened. In addition to destroying the “one country, two systems” model for Hong Kong – which Beijing still hopes to peddle to Taiwan – the economic price would be huge. Though Hong Kong represents only 3 per cent of China’s gross domestic product, some 60 per cent of foreign investment in the mainland flows through the city, according to The Economist. Under US law, the city is treated as a separate economic entity, allowing it to escape Trump’s tariffs.
Xi Jinping is considering whether to act on his regime’s repeated threats to crush Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement by force. AP
If an intervention were bloody, most or all of that could be lost. Yet Xi no doubt is listening to arguments such as that recently advanced by the communist Global Times newspaper, which editorialised that China could more easily manage the economic and diplomatic consequences of a crackdown than it could 30 years ago, when the Tiananmen movement was shattered by tanks. “China is much stronger and more mature, and its ability to manage complex situations has been greatly enhanced,” it said.
My guess is that the aftermath of a Hong Kong crackdown would be less like Tianamen, which wiped out the student-led democracy movement, and more like Communist Poland after the suppression of the Solidarity trade union in 1981. As in Poland, Hong Kong’s freedom movement is supported by the vast majority of the population. It cannot be stamped out – only forced to move underground. At some point, it likely would reemerge, especially if it had international support.
That, sadly, is the missing element in Xi’s calculus. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter bluntly warned the Soviet Union against the military intervention in Poland that it was then preparing, helping Solidarity to survive for 16 months. After Moscow settled for the imposition of martial law by the Polish Army, President Ronald Reagan imposed crippling sanctions and set up clandestine ratlines to help keep the movement alive.
As Xi has threatened Hong Kong, Trump repeatedly and publicly sympathised with him. Even under pressure from his advisers, the best he could do was muse that a crackdown would make it politically difficult for him to strike a trade deal. That’s why, while the histories of this summer will not remember Greenland, they may record that Trump opened the way to the suppression of the most important freedom movement communist China has known.
Washington Post
ShareRead MoreHong Kong protestsMost Viewed In PolicyRumblings of global recession get louderIndia, Nepal and Pakistan rated ‘high risk’ for universitiesSlumping data may force third Fed rate cutUS services gauge misses most pessimistic forecastUS set to widen trade war with EuropeLatest StoriesM&ATicketek owner TEG acquired by private equity giant Silver Lake
Australian ticketing, live events and data analytics business TEG has been sold in a deal worth more than $1 billion to US private equity giant Silver Lake.
44 mins agoLiveMarkets LiveASX in recovery mode; futures up 0.5 per cent
Wall St finished up overnight; RBC Capital Markets sees the dollar fading to US65.50¢; US job growth slowing
52 mins agoCryptocurrenciesFacebook Libra payments partners waver on cryptocurrency
Visa, Mastercard, PayPal Holdings and Stripe are undecided about formally signing onto Libra’s organising charter, Bloomberg reported.
1 hr agoWall StreetBullish US equity sentiment at 10-month low
The bull market is running low on bullish sentiment, according to the latest survey by the American Association of Individual Investors.
SponsoredAdvertisementAustralia’s 10 most covertly powerful peopleAustralia’s 10 most powerful people in 2019Why Scott Morrison and his inner circle are on the riseThe five most powerful people in educationDavid Harrison Australia’s most powerful property titan in 2019Corporate mentors are a gift to charitiesWhy doing what you love is bad adviceThe mining chief who’s full of beansWhy big companies can’t innovateFrom the boardroom to the Barrier ReefCredit risk manager’s beautiful gamble on fashionAdvance Australian fashionWhen is a huge TV not a huge TV?Meet the next-gen Austrian winemakers doing it their wayAudi’s Grand Tourer joins the 300 clubSpecial ReportsGenerating yield in a low interest rate environmentStart-ups offer enormous rewards but skill and patience requiredProperty investors thinking beyond the home Social impact integral to entrepreneurial success, say young Switching to the latest technology part of strategyAustralian Financial Review
The Australian Financial Review
www.afr.com