It is good that the Hong Kong protesters are so young. They have no idea of how high their pucker factor should be:
Looking at China’s own recent history, from the CCP’s perspective the lesson of Tiananmen Square was not that the use of tanks and PLA troops to subdue the Chinese people was a mistake. Rather, Deng Xiaoping and the party elders believed that the price was justified in order to stave off an even greater catastrophe. As Deng said in his first speech after the June 4 crackdown, “The nature of the incident should have been obvious from the very beginning. The handful of bad people had two basic slogans: overthrow the Communist Party and demolish the socialist system.”
Beijing’s calculus is seemingly confirmed by the experience of other communist leaders who acceded to protester demands, from Solidarity in Poland to East Germany’s (inadvertent) decision to open the Berlin Wall. Such moves to appease protesters lead to “demand spirals,” wherein opposition movements are emboldened, not satisfied, by compromise.
If the CCP believes that these are the stakes, then the adoption of almost any means is acceptable.
The world will disapprove of China's slaughter of civilians in Hong Kong. The CCP knows that the world will get over it.
The CCP also knows that if the protesters win, the dominoes could reach into Peking itself. I know, the domino theory is silly. Tell that to the Soviets who saw the first domino fall along the Hungarian border with the West when the Hungarians first opened their border in the summer of 1989. The dominoes soon fell all across Eastern Europe and then reached into the USSR itself, falling all the way to Central Asia.
The CCP rulers are determined to enjoy their omelet. The egg-breaking could take place any time.
Still, I wonder if the CCP is looking at Tienanmen Square to resolve their Hong Kong problem.
Perhaps China's experience in Xinjiang with their concentration camps for Moslem Uighurs is the template China will use. Could China round up student protesters and send them off to camps in Xinjiang where they will be reeducated and function as involuntary colonists to ethnically cleanse--by swamping the locals with numbers--Xinjiang. I noted this possibility long ago as applied to conquered Taiwan.
Indeed, the hostility of the locals to these "invaders" from Hong Kong would be part of the "reeducation" of the protesters.
China might be able to avoid bloodshed where the world is watching and ship off the young troublemakers to where the West's prying eyes can't see the victims of CCP oppression.
And the rest of the people in Hong Kong--older people with more to lose--will be scared witless as they see mainland Chinese colonists come in to replace the deported protesters.
(Although this population trade seems fair.)
Heck, even if Chinese propaganda to demonize the protesters to separate them from the broader people of Hong Kong doesn't work, those people who remain in Hong Kong will know it is best to pretend they believe the propaganda.
The world will get over it. And China knows that.
Have a super sparkly day.
UPDATE: Michael Yon is live right now in Hong Kong. We aren't going to war over Hong Kong. But why can't we in the West at least clearly state that the Hong Kong protesters are the good guys in this dispute?
UPDATE: The Chinese have moved troops closer:
U.S. intelligence agencies are closely watching Chinese troop movements in Shenzhen near Hong Kong where several hundred thousand People’s Liberation Army and People’s Armed Police troops are massing along with armored vehicles.
Satellite photos published this week showed an estimated 500 armored personnel carriers and military trucks parked in a sports stadium in Shenzhen, a city near Hong Kong.
State-run Chinese media reports over the past week have provided indications that the ruling Communist Party is preparing the population for a major military crackdown on the former British colony, one that likely could resemble the 1989 massacre of pro-democracy protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
It certainly could resemble 1989. But it could be a capture, exile, and "reeducate" mission. The article says Peking has 70,000 military, intelligence, special forces, and security forces--including plain clothes people--in Hong Kong already.
UPDATE: The Chinese didn't see it coming.
And who knows, maybe freedom could win in China one day and save Hong Kong.
