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Opinion | Why Beijing hasn’t cracked down on Hong Kong, yet: it can afford to bide its time
- A military crackdown in Hong Kong would lose China its coveted place at the table of great powers
- Beijing can cope with a Hong Kong that recedes into global economic irrelevance but will not tolerate a challenge to its sovereignty
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Why you can trust SCMP
China’s restrained stance on the increasingly violent Hong Kong protests is burnishing its image as a responsible stakeholder in the international system. That is hardly the outcome the protesters want, but it is the result they will achieve the more they test the pacifist will of the city’s government and, ultimately, that of Beijing – up to a point.
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It is quite obvious that Beijing would not have tolerated anything close to the level of anarchic criminality masquerading as democracy on the streets of Hong Kong in any part of mainland China.
The Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 occurred precisely because the communist authorities did not want the Beijing-centred unrest to spread and undermine its rule on a national scale. Dissent that is suppressed decisively in the capital loses momentum in the provinces, which are more populated than capitals.
This time, China has held off on undertaking a Tiananmen-style crackdown in Hong Kong because the territory is not just another part of China. It is a special administrative region which enjoys a high degree of autonomy under the “one country, two systems” formula. Beijing wishes to tell the rest of the world that it abides by the terms of Hong Kong’s return in 1997.
That event marked a triumphant rejection of Hong Kong’s 150-year colonial history and the city resuming its place in thousands of years of Chinese history. Immediately, however, Hong Kong became a new interface between China and the rest of the world. How well Beijing respected the terms of Hong Kong’s transfer from Britain reflected on China’s own standing as a rising power with global interests.
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That was the catch. Hong Kong’s return to China would become an indicator of China’s own return to the world order since Deng Xiaoping reversed three decades of autocratic and impoverishing Leninism in favour of prosperity at home and peaceful engagement abroad.
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