James Snell

China’s protests and the dark lesson of Hong Kong

Protestors in Hong Kong (photo: Getty)

It is easy to imagine that a dam might be bursting in China. There have been spontaneous street protests across the country against the country’s zero Covid policy, unconfirmed videos in Shanghai show crowds calling for president Xi Jinping to resign, and political content is slipping though China’s draconian social media censorship. 

Earlier in the pandemic, Chinese residents in Covid-stricken cities were trapped in their apartment buildings while, in one memorable dystopian moment, a horde of drones deployed by the local communist party told them to ‘control your soul’s desire for freedom’. Now, after a fire in a residential block in Urumqi killed ten people, it seems as though people have suddenly had enough.  

The story of this century has been the CCP consolidation of power

Many international outlets are correctly suggesting this new wave of public dissention is a ‘challenge’ to the Chinese Communist Party and its obsessive and doomed desire to prevent Covid from establishing a visible presence in the country. But it is too soon to say whether China is on the verge of Iran-style protests, possibly shaking the foundations of its totalitarian state. Public discontent is real, and justified. The Communist party has once again – as it is apt to do – made things worse. But that does not mean that freedom is but a few mass demonstrations away. 

It is worth keeping in mind what happened to Hong Kong within the space of the last five years, and within 25 years of the 1997 handover. As a reminder, Hong Kong used to have fairly free elections and a media with outlets not under communist party control. Not anymore. 

Hong Kong’s downfall began when the executive proposed a bill in 2019 which would have made a mockery of the region’s legal separation from the mainland. At the same time, Hong Kong residents who sold books and magazines of which Beijing disapproved were mysteriously kidnapped, dragged across the border, and filmed in CCP courts, bleary eyed from their mistreatment.  

Those who believed the Chinese state when it signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration, and made promises to protect Hong Kong’s separate legal system, suddenly found themselves disillusioned and in danger.

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