Tiananmen 2.0?
Sihanoukville, Cambodia, October 1st, 2014
Salaroche


I can imagine how difficult it must be for arrogant megalomaniac nuts of the Xi, Jinping kind to give up their grip on power after their criminal gang has been enthroned in the halls of government for over six decades. Pride in keeping the existing authoritarian structure intact very likely plays a big part in their intransigent political behavior, although the idea of playing the role Gorbachev played in allowing the demise of the USSR must scare the living daylights out of them too.

But the paragon between China and the USSR holds water only to a certain extent. China is not today anywhere near the sociopolitical and economic shambles its counterpart was in by the late 80’s. The economic side of this equation keeps quelling to a considerable degree most popular discontent in China, while the tight security state takes care of the intellectuals and other influential dissenters, including those a la Bo, Xi Lai.

Discontent with the system, however, is always simmering under whatever distractions modern technology and government censorship might provide the general population with. And here’s where the Hong Kong issue presents a national security conundrum to the so-called “Communist Party”: To activate Tiananmen 2.0 or not. And if the choice is not to do it, what are the alternatives?

Times keep changing and the world’s communications systems are nowadays so interwoven that hardly anything happens in any corner of the world that is not immediately known everywhere else, in spite of whatever Firewalls governments might try to install in their efforts to keep the World Wide Web at the gates.

Have you seen the aerial views of the crowds flooding Hong Kong freeways and streets taken by private drones armed with video cameras? The eyes of the world are centered on that city, waiting to see the consequences of those peaceful demonstrations. What will Xi, Jinping do? Cave in? Do a Tiananmen 2.0?

Without a doubt, in the event of a Tiananmen Reprise in Hong Kong, the whole episode would be broadcast live to the whole planet, courtesy of modern technology, so that no one in the West would be able to claim ignorance of it all. What would the US and the EU’s response to that be? What would foreign companies doing business in and through Hong Kong do? Some of them are already moving their headquarters to Singapore. Would Hong Kong’s economy be seriously damaged in the long run, or only for a few weeks?

Tiananmen 2.0 may prove to be a financial disaster for Hong Kong and a PR political nightmare for Beijing, but if the Ukrainian example is any indication of similar situations to come, a few weeks or months down the line Western economic interests might easily prevail over politics and the whole issue might be relegated to the backburners of the Western press and political elites. This possibility might encourage the Chinese leadership to bet on the hardline approach.

On the other hand, caving in to the demands for real Democratic elections in Hong Kong would have unforeseen long-term repercussions across the Chinese mainland. “If Hong Kong can stand up to Beijing”, the rest of the provinces would think, “we can do it too”. This would happen primarily in Xinjiang Province, where the Uyghur people have even staged some terrorist acts across the land in their continuing struggle for independence. Beijing gives Hong Kong legitimate free democratic elections and the Uyghur’s’ dream of an autonomous Uyghurstan will look a lot more attainable and will fuel their zeal to pursue it.

Hong Kong’s refusal to relinquish their aspirations for true democracy has truly cornered Mr. Xi between a rock and a hard place. His choices aren’t many and those he has don’t present a clean way out of the situation. He plays real hardball and Hong Kong’s financial future is a toss, on top of the fact that the Western world would be forced to retaliate one way or another. He plays a weak hand and mainland China’s domestic independentist and separatist movements might present him with a constant headache for the rest of his tenure.

Is there any short term solution to this political quagmire? Well, Mr. Xi and his gang could always opt to wait till there’s a conservative pro-Beijing backlash to the Umbrella Movement, or they could actually stage such backlash by sending mainland party members to instigate it. They could also send some mainland goons to turn the demonstrations into unruly, violent clashes with the Umbrella guys, or even with the police, thereby justifying the use of force against all demonstrators, but neither of these two choices would suppress the long-term issue of real Democratic elections, which is at the core of the Umbrella Movement.

On the softer side, Mr. Xi could always try granting concessions to the Hong Kong people’s demands and then clamp down on any news filtering into Mainland China about it, thereby saving some face, at least temporarily. Later he could spin the concept of “One China Two Systems” to make it fit into whatever relevant platitude has proven to be acceptable to the Chinese masses. After all, lying to the people has always been one of the most salient skills of the “Communist” party.

On second thought, and for reasons of the widespread world media previously mentioned, not even the latter choice would present a clean escape route for those pseudo-Communist megalomaniacs, so for the moment there’s nothing left to do but wait and see how they get out of that self-dug pit of political manure they have thrown themselves into.

In the meantime, thumbs up to the people of Hong Kong.

Salaroche