Ordinary Gweilo

When Conrad told us that an opinion piece by another blogger was ‘required reading’, I naturally followed his instructions. Then I found that the comments from prominent bloggers Phil, Richard and Simon were that it was a “Magnificent post”, “Great analysis” and “excellent”. Wow!

Conrad felt that it was not appropriate to take extracts from this post “because you need to read it all”. My advice would be slightly different – by all means read it, but you need to understand the flaws in the argument that Andres Gentry is advancing.

We start with a question from Willy Wo-Lap Lam, sacked as China correspondent by the SCMP and now working for CNN: “will Hu Jintao do to George W. Bush on Taiwan what Deng Xiaoping did to Margaret Thatcher on Hong Kong?” (by which he means that China is strong enough to ignore foreign concerns). Andres argues that Hong Kong was a special case because although Britain could theoretically have hung on to Hong Kong island and the Kowloon Peninsula, it would not be viable without the New Territories (for which Britain’s lease ran out on 30 June 1997). So Britain’s negotiating position was weak, and yet Thatcher still had the last laugh because the Basic Law safeguards Hong Kong, and limits what China can do right up until 2047.

Well, I happen to believe that the British government did a fairly poor job of negotiating the handover. Initially they thought that perhaps China might either forget about it (!!) and leave things unchanged, or allow the British to carry on running the place after the expiry of the lease. When they discovered that Deng Xiaoping was determined to make Hong Kong part of China, they weren’t really prepared for the negotiation process. Ultimately, China got most of what it wanted, and probably more than they could have expected. The safeguards enshrined in the Basic Law were necessary if foreigners (and foreign investment) were not to be scared away from Hong Kong. Deng didn’t want to lose all the things that made Hong Kong successful – in fact he wanted the rest of China to be more like Hong Kong.

Andres says that Britain’s position was weak because the lease on the New Territories ran out on 30 June 1997. Legally Britain could have handed over the New Territories but retained Hong Kong island and the part of Kowloon up as far as Boundary Street, but that would not have made any sense and so they needed to negotiate with China. The strength of Britain’s position was that it was negotiating on behalf of the Hong Kong people – if too many of them lost confidence and emigrated, the handover would be a pyrrhic victory and Deng would have failed. So a successful outcome for China was one that left them with control but which was also acceptable to Hong Kong people, and that was what they got.

Andres then returns to the subject of Taiwan, and says:

So, everyone should be straight on this at least: because the Taiwanese people do not accept Mainland domination, no Mainland party or army will be able to successfully coerce them to join China.

I don’t quite buy this argument. Taiwan people are Chinese, and in recent years we have seen increasingly close economic integration between China and both Hong Kong and Taiwan. If the circumstances were right, Taiwan could very well become an autonomous region of China. Of course it won’t happen today or tomorrow, or next year or the year after, but if “One country, Two systems” works in Hong Kong then why shouldn’t it work for Taiwan?

This, of course, is why Tung Chee-Hwa was given a hard time last week in Beijing. He was supposed to be a popular leader who would listen to Hong Kong people and give them what they wanted, whilst at the same time marginalising the Democrats. Instead, his bungling has strengthened the Democrats and raised awkward questions about the future direction of Hong Kong.

My reading of the situation is that people in Hong Kong do still feel patriotic (towards China) and have much more respect for central leaders such as Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao than they do for Tung. The most obvious way of expressing displeasure with Tung is to vote against the DAB and for the Democrats, but I think it’s a mistake to interpret this as necessarily a desire for democracy, as Andre does:

Hong Kong, which is a part of China, continues to give Beijing all sorts of trouble for the simple reason that its citizens want to choose their own government.

[..]

Last July the people of Hong Kong protested to the tune of 500,000 people in favor of universal suffrage. It is now December and Beijing has still to formulate a clear strategy beyond propping up Tung Chee-hwa through preferential business deals.

I’m still not convinced that universal suffrage is as important to the people of Hong Kong as most westerners believe, and I know that the march on 1 July was primarily about the Article 23 legislation and a protest against Tung’s government.

When Mr Tung went to Beijing this week, the headline in the SCMP after his meeting with the central leaders was “Listen to the people, Hu advises Tung”. Saturday’s SCMP reports that Guangdong’s leaders are well-regarded in Beijing because they are “adroit and ambitious politicians”. In other words, even if there is no democratic process, the leaders need to behave as if there was one and make themselves popular.

With living standards having improved so dramatically under Communist Party rule, who would bet against them winning free elections if they were brave enough to stage them? Yes, I know it’s not going to happen anytime soon, and the absence of democracy is one of the biggest problems with China as far as many in the west are concerned. However, the way that the political system actually works in practice in most democracies (for example in the United States, where the population is almost equally split between those who think George W Bush is a strong decisive leader and those who think that he is an idiot) makes the case for democracy less than compelling.

I realise that many people will feel that there is no need to make the case for democracy because it is the only legitimate system of government, but I think it is very instructive to consider how you would persuade an ordinary person in China that an election and a change of government every 4 or 5 years would have made their life any better. Could a democratic government really have done a better job of transforming China over the last few years?

If you believe that democracy is absolutely essential then I suppose it follows that China could well break up as some of the regions use the democratic process to assert their independence, which is the final point Andres makes. I don’t propose to discuss that in detail, but what if the Chinese people really are content with a strong government that delivers economic growth and improving living standards? What if the people of Taiwan (and Hong Kong) see their Chinese nationality as more important than anything else, and feel proud to be part of a successful China? Are they wrong?