March in China: Hong Kong, Alaska, and Xinjiang
Note: the sole purpose of this piece is to serve my civic duties as a Chinese citizen.
2021 is the most important year in the modern history of the Party as it marks its centenary, which means political achievements need to be made prior to the sacred date of July 1st. Since absolute poverty has been supposedly eradicated, while relative poverty is perhaps impossible to completely solve, the materialistic Marxists in China need ideological support to celebrate its birthday and enhance the Party’s legitimacy.
In March, the most important political meetings, at least symbolically, were held in Beijing where near 3,000 delegates from across China attended, some of whom are normal workers while some are amongst the richest billionaires in the country. Important economic targets and social reform policies are set forward by the government after short formal deliberations, among them are GDP targets, housing reforms, emphasis on technology self-reliance, education reforms, etc. Delegates were lectured by the center about future policies and voted for them before leaving Beijing. For analysts and capitalists, lianghui is an important door which is normally forbidden but open once per year so that people can know how the country’s economic policies are going to impact the market.
For students of policies, we are much more lucky as important political decisions need not to be decided by the full congress as the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress diligently and fully represent not only the nearly 3,000 delegates but also the interest of 1.4 billion Chinese people. For example, after the National People’s Congress formally ended, the Standing Committee unfortunately needed to work overtime and stay in Beijing a bit longer as they are entrusted by the full congress to work out the details of a resolution to reform Hong Kong’s election law. Luckily these senior members lived up to Chinese people’s expectations and unanimously voted for a law that fully upholds the ‘one country, two systems’ framework by deliberating yet another law in Beijing by mainlanders since Hong Kong politicians are either incompetent or unpatriotic while a significant number of people in Hong Kong are misled by Western propaganda.
Foreign interference, something blasted by almost all sovereign states since foreign workers cannot just simply come and take over domestic politicians’ hard-earned jobs that required not only time but also, judging from the amount of charged officials for corruption, sacrifice of one’s pure hearts to collude with evils in a dirty political game. Then, are some Hong Kong people and politicians subject to heavy foreign interference? If one day one cannot find protesters waving British or American flags but waving Chinese flags at an anti-government rally, the central government would not suspect Hong Kongers have developed Stockholm syndrome or simply have weak knees and bad eyesights. But again, as Hong Kong was colonized for 99 years and have only returned to the motherland for 24 years, should we really treat her so roughly? If people in Hong Kong love their mini-constitution and would prefer things to stay the way they were before, why is it so unimaginable to allow they to enjoy their sense of false freedom and hypocritical democracy? After all, if the Western world and our compatriots in Taiwan are content with playing a rigged game, why not let them enjoy it since we can alo become an active player in that game?
Hong Kong is not merely a port with nice fragrance, it is more like a kite — allowing it to roam relatively free, it can bring you admires from fellow kiters as it thinks that it can fly freely so it brings out its best performance. But if you tight the kite too close, nobody will like a low-flying kite. Then, the question becomes how tight should you hold the kite? The answer is quite straightforward and, of course, proposed by the brilliant senior policymakers in Beijing — let the patriots rule Hong Kong. One must have patriotism, and this has become a tradition without justification that Chinese people have been taught throughout the majority of our civilization. Then, what seems to be the problem for Hong Kongers? Are they unpatriotic? This answer is a bit tricky as Hong Kongers are (not) patriotic. They love Hong Kong, which is legally, politically, culturally, and historically part of China but they also love their mini-constitution and the freedom and liberal democracy that their British colonizers taught them. They do not think about matters in terms of false freedom, positive freedom, socialist democracy, etc. as they merely know they they cannot rant so much about their discontent towards the central government anymore. They are relatively powerless and would (hopefully) never be capable of killing Goliath as they do not even possess a sward unlike David. If we continuously pressurize Hong Kongers, we cannot win over their hearts or need to wait for a few generations before the effects of education system reforms kick in, and we would leave them no choice but to think of us as a monstrous entity that they cannot identify with. If Chinese and American senior officials can have relatively peaceful dialogues in Alaska, why can pro-Beijing officials not debate with the opposition anymore? Is it because Hong Kong is too hot, therefore conducive to anger and radical tempers? Maybe the Legco should be moved further north in China to get some cool air.
Perhaps I am missing out here. Who should be labeled a patriot? If Oi Wa is a Hong Longer and loves China but absolutely detests communism because he/she is a zealous follower of Smith and Hayek so he/she thinks communist parties should not possess power, is he/she a patriot? If Oi Wa absolutely adheres to the iron doctrine of ‘one country, two systems’ but believes the National Security Law violates the doctrine, is he/she a patriot? If Oi Wa loves liberal democracy and despite his/her friend Karl patiently warning that liberalism obscures and sugarcoats the sins of our contemporary world, and would want to widen political participation in Hong Kong, is he/she a patriot? Whose voice counts here? Oi Wa’s voice, the opposition’s voice, pro-Beijing’s voice, the liaison office’s voice, or the voice from 1,200 miles away?
As we are talking about the Alaska meeting, it makes me wonder what diplomatic meetings are for? Clearly for the first hour of the two-day conversation, the meeting is for the domestic audience. For the imperialists, they need to paint themselves as the defender of democracy and the rule-based world order so they need to stand up against China as the global savior and defend the interest of the world against radical communists who infringe on the human rights of all living on Earth. For the comrades, they need to show to the world that China is now a powerful state that is capable of engaging in conversation with the global hegemon on equal terms and that the imperialists and their values do not necessarily represent the interests and values of the world so rules need to be changed.
Wang Huning forcasts the conflict between the U.S. and China quite well around 30 years ago in his diary — when China was underdeveloped, the West laughs at China and says it needs to open up and embrace globalization, but when China reformed and caught up with the West, the West starts getting worried about China and believes China is a threat. However, in the end, Wang writes, it is merely the cause of cultural differences. Is it? The West and China have fundamentally different interpretations on values such as freedom and democracy — so fundamental that the Chinese can stare straight into the eyes of the American and say that your democracy is fake and ours is superior. Apart from the cynical argument that the Party merely constructs different interpretations to maintain its legitimacy without actually implement political reforms, if we take cultural differences seriously, we are at a critical juncture — facing cultural expansionism and protectionism under globalization and mutual interdependence, how do we solve such radical differences on the most basic aspects of human social life? Dialogue. Dialogue without prejudice and without the necessity to speak to domestic audience so that the imperialists need not to feel the need saying the U.S. would not allow China to become the wealthiest and most powerful country so that our comrades need not to suggest that our days of being beaten up by the foreigners are over. If China and the U.S. can share information on their respective journeys to Mars merely because of a joke during the Alaska meeting, what is stopping both parties from engaging more in mutual understanding and development?
Unfortunately, the world does not have patience with China now as the Dutch, Canadians, and Americans are starting to label our Xinjiang policy as a genocide. This is no way to start a dialogue. I have always contemplated what would bring the world together besides football, and my answer has been an alien invasion. Imagine an alien spaceship in South China Sea ready to clear out all lives on Earth, the imperialists, comrades, Japanese, etc. would not argue about who should respond based on their territorial disputes as they will put together their finest weapons and have their warships sailing into the Sea to defend humanity. The West has done exactly the same by letting the Chinese people remember the old days of imperialism and colonization under a weak central government so the logical thing for today’s Chinese is to, as Fromm argues, escape from freedom and hide behind a charismatic leader that promises a great rejuvenation of the Chinese people. Truth no longer matters now as nobody really knows what happens in Xinjiang but the Chinese people genuinely believes — of course this is under the help of our great media — that it is an infringement of our sovereignty for the West to point fingers in such ways.
Solution? Our Ministry of Foreign Affairs has continuously invited Westerners to go to Xinjiang and visit for themselves, but would it be like another WTO investigation in Wuhan? If there is nothing to hide in the lab and if having apolitical medical doctors from the most prominent international medical organization that China praises so much on visiting a lab would not bring significant negative damages on state interests, why not allow them? Then, having Westerners visiting Xinjiang would not erase their doubts and can be potentially counterproductive. Alternatively, if there is a need to incite nationalism by continuously operating domestic media in such manners, why not perform an internal revision that only circulates around in the top level on what has happened? If there is anything wrong, silently address such issues so this tide can be over and done with quicker. Sanctions are not the answer, neither for China nor for the West. We are too mutually interdependent thanks to the warships that opened up the Chinese market more than 100 years ago.
Unfortunately, we live in an age of irrational nationalism where rational patriots are considered traitors or human rights abusers. Why don’t we all go to Alaska and cool ourselves down?
