Ordinary Gweilo

Today’s SCMP leads on Beijing’s rebuke to the US for meddling in Hong Kong affairs. This arises from the comments made by James Keith, the US Consul General for Hong Kong. His comments seemed relatively uncontroversial – you’d expect the US to be advocating greater democracy for Hong Kong:

It is the US belief that history has more than demonstrated that the best way to respond to the will of the people is through universal suffrage…We believe the best next step is to begin full and public consultations on democratisation as soon as possible.

However, it’s not hard to see why the Chinese government should feel sensitive about this subject. The Basic Law is somewhat vague on the timetable, but full democracy is going to come eventually, and this will create some interesting problems. The success of the Democrats and their allies and the comparative failure of the DAB will not have reassured the central government.

Stephen Vines discusses some of these issues in the current issue of Spike, and he points out that there are considerable risks here that need careful thought by the democrats. If the US consul-general had thought before he had opened his mouth, perhaps he would also have realised that the last thing anyone who wants more democracy should be doing right now is to provoke the Chinese government on this subject.