Hong Kong Occupy Protesters Really Serious About “Democracy”?
As the Occupy protests continue in Hong Kong, articles, editorials and op-eds in the Western press continue to characterize the conflict as one between those in Hong Kong demanding “real democracy” and Beijing reneging on its promise of “universal suffrage” under “one country two systems.” Western media and leaders – including the New York Times Editorial Board and President Obama, for example – have all argued that “universal suffrage” in Hong Kong means that Beijing should have no say in determining which candidates are eligible to run for elections and that the system China has proposed is but a “charade” of democracy.
But does this narrative hold any water?
A quick glance at history and Article 45 of the Hong Kong’s Basic Law is revealing.
Hong Kong’s Basic Law has served as the constitutional document of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) of the People’s Republic of China since 1997. It was drafted in accordance with Sino-British Joint Declaration on the Question of Hong Kong (The Joint Declaration), signed between the Chinese and British governments on 19 December 1984.
Historically, Hong Kong has never implemented “universal suffrage” for the selection of any of its leaders – not under British rule, and not under PRC rule. While Article 45 does provide for a road map to “universal suffrage,” the actual timeline was to be set by the PRC central government.
Per a decision by the PRC’s Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress in 2007, the 2017 election for Hong Kong Chief Executive election was set to be first time election of the Chief Executive of Hong Kong would be conducted under “universal suffrage.” 1
The most recent protests were set off in response to the NPC’s recent promulgation of rules on on how the HKSAR chief would be selected for 2017. Among the issues often cited was the fact that PRC requires that candidates “love the country, and love Hong Kong” — and would “protect the broad stability of Hong Kong now and in the future.” The protesters demand that the PRC scrap any semblance of a “nominating committee,” arguing such a committee represents an unreasonable constraint on “universal suffrage.”
But a reading of Article 45 shows otherwise.
Article 45 reads:
The Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall be selected by election or through consultations held locally and be appointed by the Central People’s Government.
The method for selecting the Chief Executive shall be specified in the light of the actual situation in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and in accordance with the principle of gradual and orderly progress. The ultimate aim is the selection of the Chief Executive by universal suffrage upon nomination by a broadly representative nominating committee in accordance with democratic procedures.
The specific method for selecting the Chief Executive is prescribed in Annex I: “Method for the Selection of the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region”.
Article 45 cannot be clearer in stating of a “selection of the Chief Executive by universal suffrage upon nomination by a …nominating committee.”
The “nominating committee” is not a “restriction” invented by the PRC to constrain what “universal suffrage” is in Hong Kong. It is the very essence of what “universal suffrage” means in a “one country two system” framework.
Some protesters have called for a relaxed reading of Article 45 that does away with any nominating committee. But if we are to trivialize the Constitution so readily, why have a Constitution at all?
Constitutions are crucial for democracy. A democracy unconstrained by a Constitution is but mob rule, as America’s founding fathers duly noted,. And as we all know by now, a mobocracy is an unstable unjust system that is always hurling toward either a tyranny of the majority or a tyranny of special interests.
What the protesters are demanding is not “democracy.” but mob rule above “law.” If the protesters can bring forth evidence how the “nominating committee” is not broadly representative of the electorate of Hong Kong, I am always willing to listen. But to protest PRC’s requirement that candidates for the Chief Executive of Hong Kong “love the country, and love Hong Kong” and “protect the broad stability of Hong Kong now and in the future”? Why would anyone protest that?
The protesters’ demand belie shows their true subversive intent. As China’s central government made clear in a whitepaper recently, “one country, two systems” does not mean the right of Hong Kong to subvert against the nation or the central government, or a right to semi-independence or even outright independence.
Some might still nevertheless question why does the PRC persist in its demand for the formation of a “nominating committee”? As a matter of Principle, irrespective of what Article 45, does not “universal suffrage” mean that candidates should be selected by the people and the people alone – without interference from power that be?
But if you look to any of major democracies in the world, major candidates put in front of the general public have always been “vetted” by the rich and powerful. In the U.S., for example, for any candidates to become viable, they must first get the approval from – by successfully fund raising from and hobnobbing with – the wealthy and powerful.
There is a reason why all major democracies have been contested by no more than two – sometimes (i.e. maybe at times, but rarely) three – major political parties. It is simply not practical for any citizen to become viable candidates on his own merit. All candidates in major democracies have always been “vetted” and groomed by the established powers that be.
Recently, scholars from Princeton and Northwestern universities showed that America empirically is an oligarchy, not democracy. The Washington Times reported it this way:
In the study, “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups and Average Citizens,” researchers compared 1,800 different U.S. policies that were put in place by politicians between 1981 and 2002 to the type of policies preferred by the average and wealthy American, or special interest groups.
Researchers then concluded that U.S. policies are formed more by special interest groups than by politicians properly representing the will of the general people, including the lower-income class.
“The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence,” the study found.
The study also found: “When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organized interests, they generally lose.”
This should not have come as a surprise.
Scholars like Lawrence Lessig in his recent work “Republic Lost” warns how the American may have long lost their “Republic” to a wealthy elite. Scholars like Norm Chomsky and Edward Herman in their work “Manufactured Consent” have long described how mass media, controlled by the society elite and powerful, have come to mold and shape the public to form whatever opinion the elite desired without overt government censorship.
But even these scholars seem to believe that there was a gilded age of democracy that we could always aspire back to. But was there ever?
Lest one forgets: when the U.S. was founded, only those who owned real property could vote. Native Americans were not only not allowed to vote, but were systematically exterminated. African Americans not only disfranchised from the voting process, but were enslaved. Women did not gain “universal suffrage” until 1920. The Chinese, for example, were legally prohibited from obtaining citizenship until 1943 and could not legally marry whites until 1967.
The U.S. likes to see itself as the beacon on top of the hill – a beacon of freedom to the world. But it was a beacon only to certain select groups of Europeans. These were not just blips of history. This was the main current of history.
Going back further in history to the enlightenment, one sees that demands for various rights such as “freedom of speech” and “freedom of religion” and for people power were the result of power struggles between church, royals (state), aristocracy, and the merchant class. Such rights were irrelevant for the common man then … and irrelevant today. The common man never had much power or freedom, except as pawns for the powerful to fight over, to recruit and to campaign to. 2
Whatever the rhetoric of democracy, the people have always been allowed to vote only those who have been vetted by powers that be. Today elections are expensive reality tv shows run by those beholden to those with deep pockets to beguile a befuddled and ignorant mass. But things were never never that much better in the past. Democracy have always been about propping up an oligarchy.
But even if all this is true, one might ask, why cannot China at least grant at least this sort of democracy. Why must it have a “nominating committee” in Hong Kong?
I’d retort, why must China adopt the Western style conception of democracy. Sure, the Chinese government can mix politics and economics in a way that allows it to play – and win – at the West’s democracy charade, but why must it? The Western style of democracy is corrupting and wasteful. If the West had not had the one-time historical windfall of being the first to industrialize and then to colonize the world, its style of government might never have worked.
The true fight in Hong Kong today is not about democracy, but about the power struggle of anti-Chinese and pro-Chinese forces. The issues have been muddled because most people – many Chinese included – are blinded by today’s ideological worship of Western political values.
China is for “universal suffrage” for Hong Kong, as provided under the Basic Law. It is however not for appeasing special interests. It should stand by what is good and right for society, and not back down to demands of a vocal and destructive few – or surrender to images of false gods preached by the West.
By Allen
http://blog.hiddenharmonies.org/
Notes:
See, e.g., http://www.legco.gov.hk/yr13-14/english/panels/ca/papers/ca1209-cdoc20131204-e.pdf ↩
See e.g. Fareed Zakaria’s “The Future of Freedom,” Chapter 1, A Brief History of Human Liberty. ↩
Hong Kong Occupy Central’s US Backed Leaders: Entwined With US State Department-Funded Organizations
Over the past several days, there has been a certain backlash, even among Hong Kong’s “Occupy Central” supporters themselves against the now exposed, US-backed leadership of the movement.
After denying, then unsuccessfully defending the fact that “Occupy Central” co-organizers including Benny Tai, Joshua Wong, Martin Lee, Anson Chan, Audrey Eu, Jimmy Lai, and Joseph Zen are all entwined with US State Department-funded organizations, movements, projects, and institutions, many “Occupy Central” supporters are now attempting to claim this leadership does not represent them, and that they remain in the streets for entirely different reasons.
They have no coherent demands, and no reasonable explanation as to how remaining in the streets will help meet these demands, and ultimately, their reasons for staying in the streets do no matter.
For “Occupy Central’s US-backed leadership, it doesn’t matter why protesters are staying in the streets, just so long as they remain there.
Benny Tai, in an interview with “Hong Wrong,” admits that “Occupy Central’s” decision to move into the streets is simply to make Hong Kong ungovernable until Beijing meets their demands – and their demands as even many previous supporters have come to realize, are dictated by the same foreign interests funding Benny Tai’s work.
Benny Tai would admit in the interview that “Occupy Central aimed at:
” causing some sort of disturbance to generate pressure on the government to accept the …our demands in case they refuse to accept the proposal we put forward.”
Therefore, Benny Tai and the rest of the US-backed movement he represents, doesn’t care why other protesters remain out in the streets – these interests, demands, and agendas are irrelevant to them – all they care about is that “some sort of disturbance” continues on to pressure the government.
The US-backed movement and their agenda is the story receiving foreign media attention, and the chaos will only abate either when this foreign-directed agenda succeeds or if the Hong Kong and Chinese governments succeed in quelling it.
Benny Tai and the other leaders of “Occupy Central” see the well-intentioned protesters flooding the streets as either dupes who honestly believe their message, or “useful idiots” who see and now reject what is clearly foreign destabilization, but remain in the streets regardless to push for their own agenda.
The true goal of “Occupy Central” is to create division and chaos across Chinese society, and for each and every protester who remains in the streets, they are contributing toward this goal whether they realize and admit it, or not.
Benny Tai’s Demands Echo Martin Lee & Anson Chan’s Delivered in Washington D.C.
In the same interview, Benny Tai would admit that:
So, and Hong Kong is a British Colony and, but it was part of China. So, the Chinese government and the British government agreed in this Sino-British negotiation, a joint declaration in 1984 that China will resume sovereignty over Hong Kong. And then China started the drafting of the Basic Law, that is our constitution after 1997. And in the constitution in one article, Article 45 is stated that the Chief Executive, the ultimate aim will be elected by universal suffrage.
Tai would continue:
But from what we see that the Chinese government seems to be talking about a kind of universal suffrage of Chinese characteristics. Not really the real universal suffrage. The kind of universal suffrage the Chinese government is talking about that is with Chinese characteristics that, you know, you can have the one person one vote. Everyone will have the right to vote, but to whom you will for? You can only vote or choose among a number of candidates that the Chinese government has approved, and then you can choose from the list of people that the Chinese government accepts. So, this is the kind of universal suffrage of Chinese characteristics.
This is verbatim the narrative presented by Martin Lee and Anson Chan as they sat before the US State Department’s National Endowment for Democracy (NED) in Washington D.C. earlier this year.
Unfortunately, Benny Tai’s US-backing indicates that instead of Hong Kong enjoying universal suffrage with “Chinese characteristics,” they would be subjected to universal suffrage with “Wall Street characteristics,” and presumably politicians drawn from Benny Tai’s own US-backed “Occupy Central” movement.
Instead of Beijing approved candidates, Hong Kong would get to choose from a myriad of Wall Street and Washington approved candidates – though not done by an official nomination committee, but rather through an already well-defined, documented network of foreign funding and political and mass media manipulation.
Nothing about Benny Tai’s agenda is worth disrupting the lives of the ordinary citizens of Hong Kong over. What he is proposing is not the elimination of interference in Hong Kong’s politics, simply the invitation of manipulation from further abroad – particularly from Wall Street and Washington.
With this in mind, those remaining in the streets of Hong Kong – if this is not the cause they support – should consider alternatives to street demonstrations.
The relationships and experiences forged even by accidentally being drawn into an insidious foreign plot, can be used to create pragmatic and progressive working groups that work toward improving community life through technology, innovation, education, and tangible, constructive projects to improve infrastructure and the quality of daily life – things utterly absent from “Occupy Central’s” current agenda as stated by leaders like Benny Tai and Martin Lee themselves.
By Tony Cartalucci, Land Destroyer Report