Rear Window | Squaring the circle

Severo Portela

Had we the phlegm of a frivolous und exotic glare while watching Hong Kong Legislative Council heating up, we could sort things out with an empty line of narrative common sense: political drama is unfolding by the hour.
Unable to keep cool we would rather risk a more extreme evaluation of the ongoing fight between localism and loyalism – a coarse simplification in the benefit of our reasoning – one of a tragedy in crescendo. Do not take it in the wrong way; the mounting tragedy is about the fate of Hong Kong political development, indeed democracy.
The thing is that the 2014 Umbrella Movement brought an end to the unwritten bipartisan political understanding between pro-Beijing apparatus and pro-democracy well-wishers. It is no longer possible for the former to pretend to be waiting for universal suffrage and for the latter to pretend to be demanding universal suffrage… in vain!
The political game changed and asked for new players. On the pro-establishment beach are now those who are not just about to defend their privilege, but are able and willing to enforce the Law (Basic), even though they might bend it a little or understand it through the NPC interpretation. On the pro-democracy front there can now be found those able and willing to force the Law (Basic) to defend their actual civil and political rights, forgetting about the old democrats able and willing to wait for the day of universal suffrage.
The heat is on. Chief Executive CY Leung overrode the Legislative branch and took Youngspiration duo of Sixtus Baggio and Yau Wai-ching voicing of an iconoclast and disrespectful oath mentioning “Hong Kong nation” and an imitation of the derogatory “Sheena” to the Courts. If the Government loses… it will be no surprise should CY Leung request an interpretation. Perhaps Sixtus’ Legco career will never take off… perhaps that is his aspiration and the price to pay to force loyalists to disrespect the Rule of Law.
Conventional wisdom says that all politics is a local affair. It is not the case if the local is Hong Kong. Being a SAR would be enough to assess Hong Kong’s limitations, but we kind of feel compelled to slightly belittle Hong Kong regarding Big China problems.
We would prefer to say China Big problem. Actually, the problem of all problems is none other than the ancient squaring the circle. President Xi, now formally at the core of the leadership, is to fully address his own theory of the Four Comprehensives: strict party governance; build a moderately prosperous society; deepen reform; govern China by law.
No one would dispute that President Xi succeeded to strengthen the party discipline – a euphemism for the unrelenting drive against corruption – but there are mixed signals about the cooling of the economy, and too much doubt over the actual depth of the process of reform. And then we come to the core of the problem: the 4th comprehensive.
Albeit putting in place legal infrastructure, China could not show off a sound and credible system that would deserve to be named “Rule of Law.” And this is the crux of the matter, the main contradiction and the enormous challenge China faces today: how to square the circle!
SCMP Cary Huang (24/10) put up a brilliant summary on the subject: “…What the party really wants is for the rule of law to strengthen its one-party rule. At the core of the rule of law is judicial independence. Yet, in China, the courts, the prosecutors, the police and lawyers are under the party´s control, with its all-powerful political and legal affairs committee making all the important decisions […] The party’s absolute rule makes true rule of law impossible”.
It seems equally impossible to erase the brand of crony capitalism China has been nurturing, although President Xi seems able to clean the game, or at least the players of the game.