Did China prevent the need for a Tienanmen Square-style slaughter in Hong Kong by clamping down through laws designed to bring tyranny to Hong Kong a few decades earlier than they agreed to hold off?
At the height of the protests in Hong Kong there were fears that the Xi administration would send in the troops, that we might see a 21st century rerun of Tiananmen Square.
But Beijing is not so stupid. The last thing it wants is images of chaos and bloodshed to be sent around the world. Its solution to what it sees as the problem of Hong Kong has therefore been administrative. The new National Security Law came into force at 11pm last night, and criminalises a wide range of ‘subversive’ activities (in effect making it easier to punish the slightest form protest). With Beijing having sole control over how the law is interpreted, it has legally, publicly, and effectively killed Hong Kong.
Or did China's rulers make that slaughter more likely by making protests too dangerous and thus encouraging actual insurrection?
And what happens then? Is China becoming more like the Soviet Union?
Under Gorbachev, the USSR favored political openness over economic reform. Deng Xiaoping's China took the exact opposite route. The USSR was on the verge of collapse, a victim of its contradictions and inability to follow the United States in an arms race that it could not afford to maintain. The Chinese regime stressed economic growth and maintained a low profile in its relations with the world. Following the lessons of Bismark, if not the advice of Henry Kissinger, China saw self-confidence and self-restraint as going hand in hand.
A re-emerging empire, China had some time to kill and could have humble success. With the uninterrupted growth of the economy, the main thing was to maintain the confidence of a society that lived better and longer. And yet, it now seems that China has forgotten these wise precepts, the very ideas that kept it so long from meeting the same fate as the USSR.
And (yeah, I know, another conditional step) doesn't that make any fight for freedom in Hong Kong one that could spread to the mainland?
Could the best reaction by Hong Kong freedom advocates be to create an unofficial parliament-in-exile?
Hong Kong pro-democracy activists are discussing a plan to create an unofficial parliament-in-exile to keep the flame of democracy alive and send a message to China that freedom cannot be crushed, campaigner Simon Cheng told Reuters.
Perhaps under a League of Democracies that would be a great idea.
These could be interesting times for the CCP that values continued rule of China above all else--and thus for the world.
One thing I know for sure is that the CCP rulers don't have any special long-range planning skills. They're as capable of screwing up as anyone else.
The ride could get rough. 2020 isn't over yet.
