Review
City on the Edge: Hong Kong under Chinese Rule
Ho-Fung Hung. Cambridge University Press, 2022.
It takes time to digest the meaning of an event of such monumental geopolitical importance as Hong Kong’s revolt against Chinese rule from 2003 to 2020.
There is much talk about colonization and decolonization, not to mention digital sovereignty, among academics these days but nearly all of it is airy theorizing. The critics of colonization are disconnected from real world experience. Ho-Fung Hung (HUNG), the author of the book reviewed here, is not. He tells us a true story of a former colony that grew to become a major city and financial center precisely because it was a colony in the post-colonial world. The book will make you think about what “colonization” really means, and probably alter your ideas about who is the colonizer and who the colonized. It also provides important insights into how the rest of the world can relate to China.
HUNG’s account of Hong Kong’s transition and its aftermath skillfully combines knowledge of economics, local (Cantonese) society and culture, HK’s governance institutions and how its politics are shaped and influenced by what happens in China. People who care about political freedom and global prosperity will be inspired by his account of how a city and its local democrats (who were in fact very similar to the democrats in Taiwan) stood up to CCP control. They will also benefit from understanding the way that HK as “colony” was not, after 1970 at least, a helpless, exploited subject of the British, nor was it longing to return to “the Motherland.” Thatcher’s England and Deng’s China made HK part of a bargain in which two empires exchanged control over HK as peacefully as possible and without disturbing the growing prosperity that arose from its unique status.
Decolonization inevitably means three way negotiations – in this case, between the old colonist (the British), the new colonist (the Beijing-based government) and the local people. We see how HK’s dual status as an economic area that is both embedded in China but independent of Chinese rule made it wealthy. It became the interconnection point for capital and trade flows between the liberal market economies of Europe, America, Japan and the gigantic, growing but walled economy of China. Ultimately, however, the economic freedom and growth of HK could not be maintained without a corresponding political autonomy. And that’s the tragic flaw in the story.
China needs HK, according to the author. And these needed functions can only be fulfilled by HK not being fully part of China, by having some autonomy. The PRC tried to formalize this status with the Joint Declaration and Basic Law, founded on the notion of One Country Two Systems (OCTS). HK would maintains its freedoms and its way of life, it would just be under Chinese sovereignty. But the CCP is bound to see that autonomy as a threat. And it probably is a threat. It punctures the myth of Chinese national unity under one authoritarian party. The exercise of political freedom by HKers could quickly show that not all Chinese are the same and the different parts might want to rule themselves. Even if they don’t totally reject being under the “sovereignty” of the PRC, they chafe at too many restrictions on their freedom, both economic and political. The Cantonese rejected Beijing’s attempt to gain control over HK’s educational system in order to inculcate “patriotism,” for example. But the Great Chinese Walled economy cannot have any leaks. Hence, the PRC is structurally unable to keep its promise of OCTS.
Indeed, Hung’s book suggests that it was never a promise, anyway. The CCP offered OCTS to Tibet in 1951. It offered it to Taiwan in the 1960s. The Taiwanese never bit, and over time the democratic autonomy of the island was institutionalized. In Tibet and Hong Kong, OCTS eased the transition to full political, legal and military control over the territory by offering the locals and the British two systems, making the regime change go more smoothly. Locals and capital would not flee (immediately), business confidence would not falter (completely), HK’s special intermediary role would be maintained. But their intent all along was to absorb the territories and make them fully under the control of the CCP. As soon as PRC discovered that “two systems” gave local citizens real autonomy over their political institutions, they took control. The locals did not like it. Tibet was a war. Hong Kong was basically a civil disorder, far less violent than Tibet, but then, the Tibetans had their own army.
And that leads to one of the most insightful contributions of this book. HUNG shows that CCP ideologues came up with books, articles and doctrinal papers rationalizing the full subordination of Hong Kong. These advocates drew on theories of sovereignty developed by Carl Schmitt, whose rationale for a national security state influenced the Third Reich. They argued for the elimination of every bit of HK’s autonomy. The work of Jiang Shigong, probably unknown to non-readers of Chinese, is given a prominent role in the story. Jiang was dispatched to the PRC’s HK Liaison Office from 2004 – 2007. Jiang and other CCP “liaisons” (agents) in HK began to use racialist, imperialist appeals to justify the PRC’s claims over Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet. In China, the political centralization of Leninism merged with dynastic dreams of ancient China. It’s not about communism, it’s about empire.
Thus China, which uses the rhetoric of national liberation and positions itself as the opponent of foreign empires, is in this case the colonizer, the imperialist. As soon as it was recognized by the United Nations, the PRC insisted on eliminating HK from a list of former colonies recognized in a UN treaty as having the right of self-determination. In the 10 years leading up to the sovereignty transition, China insisted on maintaining non-democratic political institutions in HK. It didn’t want the British to democratize, especially when it came to the selection of the territory’s Chief Executive. China wanted the same power to govern HK as the British. (The British, at least, had no racialist illusions about the identity of their colony.) China also flooded HK’s capital and property markets with mainland investment, companies, buyers. They liberalized outflows of settlers from Communist Han China to Tibet, then Xinjiang, and then Cantonese Hong Kong.
HUNG’s description of the HK social movements (and it is a plural) working against mainland CCP control is sensitive and sociologically well-informed. He shows how democratic forces coalesced and split and how and why the resistance became more confrontational and more politically radical, how localist, pro-independence positions moved from marginality to prominence. If anyone ever believed the CCP propaganda that all the unrest was caused by the United States, HUNG demolishes that with election results, poll results, and facts about historical development, which demonstrate widespread support to the resistance.
The CCP’s biggest fear during the HK uprisings of 2019-2020, was that HK would attain the same level of autonomy as Taiwan. HUNG HF asserts that the Chinese National Security Law was passed in response to that fear. It eliminated all HK autonomy in two ways: 1) it was legislated by the PRC’s National People’s Congress, an extension of the national government wholly controlled by the CCP. There was no development, approval or even consultation with HK’s political institutions, no involvement of LegCo or the public. It made it clear, in other words, that all legislative and executive power sits in Beijing. 2) it imposed sweeping controls on civil liberties, giving Beijing the power to use the local state apparatus to deem any speech or action a threat to national security. There are no precedent standards or legal checks on the state’s power to designate someone or something a national security threat. China began arresting all supporters or advocates of democratic rights. Thus, organized resistance and protest can no longer take place in HK.
At least, now we know exactly what OCTS means.
Are Hong Kong and its freedom dead? HUNG presents an optimistic view, arguing that the people having tasted freedom will continue to resist and act upon opportunities that may arise to alter the repression. I am not so optimistic. But it is better to have hope, so read this book.
As alluded to above, this is not just a local story. The relationship between China and the liberal democracies of the West, especially the US, is at the forefront of geopolitics. HK was the gateway between the two for many decades. Foreign policy makers in the U.S. can see from this story that economic integration and legal cooperation between these two blocs really does fuel prosperity, soften China’s authoritarianism and help maintain the autonomy of ethnically Chinese but politically independent, freer societies. Ironically, both sides are busy building walls that isolate and separate.
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Source: Internet Governance Forum