There has been plenty of reporting and commenting on the protests in Hong Kong and how the government in Beijing has and will handle the situation. The protests began due to a proposed bill which would allow extradition to the mainland which would undermine the independent legal system of Hong Kong. To me though, the most interesting thing about the protests is the communist party’s response as it they seem to be between a rock and a hard place to say the least.
When I first heard of Xi Jingping’s ascent to emperor for life I figured it was a sign of strength, surely only a very powerful figure could become leader for life. However, Geopolitical Futures introduced me to the idea that a more dictatorial leadership is a sign of weakness rather than strength. Of course, these two views aren’t incompatible as one is centred on a person and the other is centred on a state. The case for Xi’s ascent being a sign of weakness is the following: internal contradictions in China threaten to tear the state apart unless the communist party can hold it together and to do so one needs a central figure with sufficient authority. One of the issues which could tear China apart is the incredible wealth gap between the coast and the interior. Most of the gains from China’s rapid growth since Deng’s time has gone to the industrialised coast which is much more heavily involved in trade than the interior. Inequality tends to breed resentment and the issue is compounded if the central government is seen as taking a side in the conflict between the rich coast and poor interior.
Hong Kong then acts as a test to see if China is strong due to having a strong central figure or if it has a strong central figure because it’s weak. I take the fact that the protests started at all as a sign of weakness which is only worsened by the fact that the protests have been able to continue for so long. A definite sign of weakness would be if the bill would be completely scrapped rather than put on hold, similarly a hard crackdown would also be a sign of weakness. In short, I can’t see a way for the Chinese Communist party to solve the Hong Kong situation without appearing weak.
What do you think? Share any comments or predictions on Twitter and come back next week for a new post. You can read my previous posts on global affairs here.
Written by Karl Johansson, Founder of Ipoleco
Comments