【Annie Zhang Column】October 1, China’s national day, is just around the corner, and the U.S. Congress is pushing ahead with a vote on Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act. Chinese, British and various “outside forces” have come to the fore, pushing the Hong Kong issue again to the frontline of the international power game after a hiatus of 32 years. The protest hymn Glory to Hong Kong is still being sung across the territory as the locals’ identity as Hongkongers is becoming stronger. The Hong Kong citizens’ hatred and fear of Communism already existed before the territory’s transfer to Chinese sovereignty. When we look back on history, we can see the deep-seated reasons that led to the full awakening of the Hong Kong people.

Glory to Hong Kong, a song spontaneously created by Hong Kong netizens, is not only the hymn of the anti-extradition bill movement but has also gained the status of Hong Kong’s “underground anthem.” People across the city sing the song, which has already sparked different versions in various languages and musical styles. (Source: dgx dgx@YouTube)

Hong Kong’s anti-extradition bill movement is currently spreading to other places around the globe. The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act moved through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee on September 25, and it is widely expected that the bill will be passed with an overwhelming majority in the coming weeks. On September 17, Hong Kong democracy activists including Joshua Wong and singer Denise Ho testified in a Congressional hearing on the Act and lobbied the lawmakers for support.

Hong Kong democracy activists including well-known singer Denise Ho (center) and Joshua Wong, secretary general of Demosistō (third from right), visited the U.S. Congress expressing their hope that the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act be enacted. (Source: GettyImages)

In the 1980s and 1990s the Sino-British Joint Declaration and the Hong Kong Basic Law laid the foundation for a system that implied that the “one country, two systems” arrangement was guaranteed by law. In the wake of the Occupy Central protests in 2014, the central government in Beijing announced a white paper titled The Practice of the 'One Country, Two Systems' Policy in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in which it emphasized and revised the political connotation of “one country, two systems”. The U.S. Congress’ upcoming vote on the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act constitutes the first time that “one country, two systems”, a framework that was previously invisible but has in fact always pertained to the interests of relevant international forces, has come to the surface.  

                       

‘Two Systems’ is not an Internal Affair of Hong Kong

One country, two systems is not solely an institutional arrangement within “one country” but also a precondition that allowed the international community after 1997 to continue to give Hong Kong a trade status and citizen status different from China’s – because “two systems” did exist.

And that was precisely the original intention behind devising one country, two systems – Beijing hoped to continue the way Hong Kong had been positioned to have it deal with the international market as an independent trader apart from China. Regardless of how China and the international community interacted, Hong Kong would be able to serve as an international free port and uphold the free flow of money, people and goods.

Therefore, the clearer the political and institutional boundaries are drawn around this famously vague arrangement, and the more it is suppressed, the more it will affect not only Hong Kong but also multilateral relationships with the United States, Europe, Taiwan, Japan and other parties who have established ties with Hong Kong under the premise of one country, two systems. The resulting backlash is not necessarily bound to come solely from within Hong Kong. Right now it is happening in the U.S. Congress, against the backdrop of the U.S.-China trade war.

After 32 years, the Hong Kong issue is being pushed back to the frontline of the international power game as China, Britain and various outside forces gradually come to the fore. What we are witnessing now is probably only the beginning of the butterfly effect triggered by the Hong Kong Summer of 2019.

As we watch the situation evolve, it is time to straighten “one country, two systems” out again, given that this political arrangement that was initially devised for Taiwan has changed beyond recognition during its test phase as minimum viable product in Hong Kong.

“The previous generation came here fleeing the Communist Party. Please don’t let the next generation fall back into the devil’s hand,” reads a Lennon Wall note. As Chinese Communist rule tightens over Hong Kong, local citizens stage protest after protest. (Photo by Kuo-Tai Liu/CW)

There’s no Short-term Solution to the Hong Kong Issue 

In July of 1977, Deng Xiaoping made his third comeback after an intense power struggle within the Communist Party of China. One month later, newly elected U.S. President Jimmy Carter dispatched U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance to Beijing to discuss the normalization of bilateral relations.

At the time, the biggest obstacle in the bilateral relationship was Taiwan. In his talks with Vance, Deng put forward three conditions: The United States were to “abolish the [Sino-American Mutual Defense] Treaty, withdraw troops and sever diplomatic relations” with the government of Taiwan. At the same time, Deng also mentioned several times that China would solve the Taiwan issue by “keeping certain institutions unchanged”,  and “respect the status quo on Taiwan and the opinions of people in all walks of life there and adopt reasonable policies and measures in settling the question of reunification so as not to cause the people of Taiwan any losses.”

At the time, Sino-British relations were undisturbed, and the “return of Hong Kong” to Chinese sovereignty was not yet an issue.

In 1978, Deng ordered that Liao Chengzhi, who had just taken office as head of the State Council’s Office of Chinese Overseas Affairs, convene and preside over a preparatory meeting in Beijing for a new-era Hong Kong and Macao Working Committee (after China established the Central Leading Party Group for Taiwan Affairs, Liao served as its deputy secretary. Liao (1908-1983) was the son of Liao Zhongkai and He Xiangning, both very early members of the Kuomintang in China).

Liang Chengzhi was among the Communist leaders in charge of Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan affairs at an early stage. His parents were leftist Kuomintang members Liao Zhongkai and He Xiangning. Liao’s father was assassinated by a right-wing Kuomintang member in 1925. (Source: Wikipedia)

The main aim of the meeting was to eliminate “disturbances” and “damage” in Hong Kong from the leftist policies of China’s Cultural Revolution. After the conference, Liao stated the Chinese government’s stance on the Hong Kong issue in a meeting with a visiting delegation of members of Hong Kong’s publishing industry.

Liao told them: “It seems that Hong Kong’s status quo must be maintained for quite a long time. The Hong Kong issue can be solved through peaceful negotiations in the future, but this will definitely not happen within the near future. With this we want to affirm two points: First, it is currently impossible to use any other means such as mass movements to solve the Hong Kong issue: Second, we acknowledge that our Hong Kong compatriots are under British rule and that Hong Kong and the hinterland have two different systems. This will not change in the short run.”

This stance carried China’s longstanding policy toward Hong Kong forward. 

Chiang Kai-shek Wanted Hong Kong Back; Mao Zedong: Not Yet

Toward the end of World War II, Chiang Kai-shek once tried to make Britain give back Hong Kong to China, conveying a message to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill through U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, but Churchill refused.

Around that time, Mao Zedong told three western reporters who had asked him about the future of Hong Kong at the Communist stronghold in Yan’an in Shaanxi Province: “We do not make a demand for an immediate return now; China is so big, and many places are not yet well administered, so why first rush to claim this small place? We can negotiate a solution in the future.” (Source: Mao Zedong Collected Works, Volume IV) 

The leaders of China, the United States and Britain during the Cairo Conference: Chiang Kai-shek, Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Chiang’s wife, Soong May-ling. (Front row left to right. Source: Wikipedia)

“Maintaining the status quo, planning long-term, getting the most out of it,” is how the basic policy of the Mao era is often summarized. Qiang Shigong, professor at the Center for Hong Kong & Macao Studies of Peking University, notes that back then, “Mao Zedong was the policy-maker, Zhou Enlai the policy executer, and Liao Chengzhi, as Zhou’s most capable right-hand man, was directly in charge of Hong Kong.”

In 1957, Zhou said in a meeting with Shanghai business leaders: “Hong Kong can serve as our base for economic contacts with those outside China; through Hong Kong we can absorb foreign investment and obtain foreign currency,” and “Hong Kong should be transformed into a port that is economically useful to us.” Regarding Hong Kong’s capitalism, he demanded: “We need to protect it well, we must not destroy it.”

In 1966, Zhou had Liao give instructions to Xinhua News Agency’s branch in Hong Kong: “Hong Kong cannot stage a Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. In our propaganda, we must not let the Hong Kong compatriots believe that the Grand Proletarian Cultural Revolution will also engulf Hong Kong. …We must avoid our party organizations and enterprise organizations in Hong Kong engaging in internal power struggles, causing big upheaval and ruining the solid foundation and strategic deployment of our long-term work in Hong Kong.”

Hong Kong’s Traditional Leftists ‘Stood Up’ by Beijing 

As the Cultural Revolution spread deep into China, Hong Kong also experienced strikes and low intensity anti-government incidents, but the British colonial government demonstrated firm resolve to quell the unrest.

On June 2, 1966, the People’s Daily wrote in an editorial: “With the support of the 700 million people in the motherland, our patriotic Hong Kong compatriots must make British colonialism pay back its blood debt! British colonialism must be sentenced to death! This historic day is bound to come.”

Hong Kong’s traditional left-wing trade unions launched strikes that subsequently evolved into the Cultural Revolution style 1967 riots but were not supported by Beijing. (Source: Wikipedia)

At the time, Hong Kong’s traditional leftist groups did not understand China’s real thinking and policy toward Hong Kong at all. But their anti-capitalist and anti-colonial patriotic struggle obviously fell on fertile ground in the territory.

They thought Beijing would eventually “liberate Hong Kong” from the hands of the British colonial government. Strikes that originally erupted over rising commodity prices triggered a series of working-class protests which, fanned by the leftists, quickly radicalized. They culminated in the “1967 riots” that were reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution and fomented deep human tragedy.

Undertones of ‘Fearing Communism’ and ‘Loathing Communism’ in Hong Kong

Professor Qiang believes that the 1967 riots formed the foundations of the Hong Kong people’s basic mental structures.

The radical protests led to dissatisfaction and fear among the Hong Kong people regarding the Chinese Communist Party and its leftist supporters in the territory, while the legitimacy of the existing British colonial rule and order, and public support for it, were bolstered. Since the beginning of the 1967 riots, “fearing Communism” and “loathing Communism” have become the basic undertones of Hong Kong public sentiment. It has also contributed to the emergence of a Hong Kong identity that is distinctly different from that of China. 

More painful for the leftists was that Beijing quickly ordered the 1967 riots to stop. After the end of the Cultural Revolution, Liao announced Beijing’s stance to the people of Hong Kong: “Although Hong Kong is our territory, it is currently under British rule. It belongs to a different system. Britain’s relations with us are presently friendly.”

Yet, change happened faster than anyone had expected.

Have you read? More on Annie Zhang Column
♦ Foreshadowing History? Hong Kong’s One Country, Two Systems Framework
♦ From 'Be Water' to 'Liberate Hong Kong' - The Evolution of the Protest Slogans
♦ Hong Kong: A City on the Brink

Translated by Susanne Ganz
Edited by TC Lin, Sharon Tseng