HK Observer | Appeasement – ‘quelle surprise’

Robert Carroll

Unexpectedly it seems that a lighter touch by Beijing towards Hong Kong has arrived even despite calls for independence! The great taboo subject raised here and responded to without fire and brimstone fearmongering. “Quelle surprise.” While I rooted for more patience in the last HK Observer (China Needs to Woo Youth) it was a plea but not anticipated, yet we saw a slew of conciliatory commentary about the territory come out.  Signals to Hong Kong from mainland officialdom had been largely stern and reproachful until this month’s National People’s Congress and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference meetings.
Quite why officials appear to be setting a more soothing tone in how Beijing addresses Hong Kong is not yet clear. Counsel taken to avoid provocative remarks to radical elements may well be behind it. This year’s potentially crucial legislative council election would logically be a factor too. There was the strong showings of youthful candidates in district elections and the recent by-election where a young localist, separatist candidate came third with 60,000 votes; double the amount a number of incumbents were elected with. This from growing youth disenchantment with how once country two systems is playing out, and the young, unlike in past LegCo elections, intend to vote en masse. That will not likely favour the establishment.
Reportedly there has been a long term research effort to take local pulses. However if that was the case why was the NPC’s Standing Committee position on democratic reform so contra flow to public opinion and citizens’ aspirations? Did the pan-democrat engineered LegCo rejection of the reform bill galvanize new research? Was there a more rigorous appraisal of existing surveys that had been previously been doctored to produce what wanted to be heard?
Whatever the reasons, to see evidence of an appeasing approach is a relief, and very welcome as was the – albeit secret – meeting of the Democrat party members with senior Chinese officials during the NPC meetings; a brave but risky move for the democrats in an election year when significant numbers of pan-democrat voters and legislators reject rapprochement with Beijing. Those against such meetings argue that past attempts have proved useless because their words went unheeded. Worse, it appeared to some voters as kowtowing when in their eyes so little had been achieved. Sadly this view ignores who much was achieved by the Democrats in Beijing getting a ten-seat enlargement of the directly-elected legislative council for 2012, including the five so-called super seats – even through indirectly – chosen via the directly elected district councilors, which thereby also substantially widened the voting base.
It’s that sort of pragmatism and mutual good will that’s needed to go forwards when the political reform process is restarted. Unfortunately the process will be five to ten years away too many years for the impatience of many young voters.
In the meantime if only middle ground could be found between the chief executive and the pan-democrats on inclusiveness in the decision-­making process. In order for that to happen there must be the necessary give and take by both Beijing and the pan-democrats, which can only happen with plenty of interaction and that cannot be done with loudspeaker political grandstanding.  A good start could be made if in exchange for some – private – climbing down in their long-term demands the pan-democrats could expect to have more influence in local affairs.