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Alex Lo

It’s the 120th anniversary of Deng Xiaoping’s birth, and people are, again, arguing whether Xi Jinping has betrayed the legacy of the great reformer (mostly the Western narrative) or is really his true heir (the official Chinese version).
Let me add my two cents about the two paramount leaders with respect to the political development of Hong Kong up till now.
To save you from the suspense, let me lay my cards on the table. I think Deng inadvertently created the democratic opposition movement in Hong Kong, which was not necessarily a good thing in the long run, and which Xi has now neutralised, which is not necessarily a bad thing, also in the long run.
Consider this statement from the first of a series of articles in this newspaper.
Referring to Deng, it said, “The ‘chief architect’ of the greatest economic liberation programme in history was also the man who demanded that the Communist Party ‘unwaveringly uphold the dictatorship of the proletariat’, nipping the country’s democracy movement in its bud.”
That’s true as far as it goes.


The most controversial act of Deng’s extraordinary career was his political decision made in 1989 to end the Tiananmen protests.
In the lead-up to the crackdown on June 4, the student and worker protesters formed bonds and connections with their counterparts from Hong Kong who subsequently helped many of the mainland student leaders escape from mainland China to overseas destinations via the so-called Operation Yellow Bird.
Tiananmen would turn many in Hong Kong into political activists; not a few would end up forming the Democratic Party (originally the United Democrats) and the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China. The alliance was the chief organiser of the annual Tiananmen vigil in Hong Kong until it was banned in recent years.
The colonial government turned a blind eye to Yellow Bird even though technically it was human smuggling. That activism laid the foundation of the Hong Kong indigenous opposition, a movement that was moderate for a time. Subsequently, though, from the 2010s, it became more radical, anti-China and anti-Chinese, in a movement sometimes called localism. Its most extreme expression was to claim independence for Hong Kong from the rest of China. That was never going to end well for the city.
Back then, Deng believed if he did not suppress the Tiananmen protests, it would lead to the collapse of the Communist Party’s leadership, and, in the worst-case scenario, even civil war. But once suppressed, the mainland’s democratic struggle was exported to Hong Kong. Paradoxically, Deng inadvertently recreated what he faced on the mainland in an anxious city awaiting reunification with the motherland.
Tiananmen triggered the democratic opposition movement, and the electoral reforms deliberately introduced by the last colonial governor, Chris Patten, gave it institutional support to bargain with Beijing. But it was ultimately the “one country, two systems” governing principle, Deng’s brainchild, that made it possible for the opposition to grow and flourish in Hong Kong, despite his obvious intention that “one country” itself should never be compromised.
That was mostly thanks to the constitutional guarantee of 50 years of no change and eventual full electoral franchise. Because of the severe post-Tiananmen crackdown, confidence in post-1997 handover Hong Kong was at an all-time low.
Both the British and the Chinese had every incentive to make sure the power transition worked out – for very different reasons.




To restore and maintain public confidence, for the next quarter of a century, the opposition was given a free hand in such extraordinary circumstances, at least until 2020, to operate in ways that even democratic countries were unlikely to tolerate. These included lobbying foreign Western governments to punish Hong Kong and mainland Chinese officials and to introduce trade policies that would hurt the local economy.
One country, two systems and its 50-year guarantee were supposed to prepare the city to integrate fully, over time, with the rest of the country, while maintaining Hong Kong’s unique capitalist features. Instead, Hong Kong eventually drifted away from the “one country” part.
The opposition was acceptable to Beijing as long as it accepted a gradualist approach to expanding the franchise and stayed patriotic, meaning the acknowledgement of “one China”, hardly a tough demand. But from the early 2010s, both independence and/or an immediate transition to full universal franchise emerged to take over the once more moderate opposition movement by a post-1997 group of youngsters.
As a result, in 2015, following the Occupy protests of the previous year, the opposition rejected Beijing’s offer of a version of universal suffrage. All the while, separatism and antagonism – against mainlanders, not just the communist Chinese state – were growing. It all came to a head in the riots of 2019, arguably the worst in local history.
It was always understood that once the red line – when Hong Kong became ungovernable – was crossed, the central government would crack down. From the time Xi first took office, he has been firm about it. The die was cast after 2019.
And so, it eventually led to Beijing’s imposition of the national security law to put an end to the protest chaos and an overhaul of Hong Kong’s political system to ensure that only those deemed “patriots” would be elected or appointed to public office, which effectively neutralised the opposition.
In the past quarter of a century, both China and the West wanted to preserve one country, two systems in toto, for very different reasons, of course. But their political demands and economic imperatives proved incompatible after 2019.
It is therefore inevitable that Hong Kong today is caught up in the great power rivalry, if not a second cold war.




But that’s a price Beijing and Xi are all too ready to pay, and a fight they have certainly won. With minimal suppression, the integration of Hong Kong with the mainland has been sped up by a quarter of a century. Despite Western media demonisation, the response of local authorities was no worse than that of the US government to the Capitol “insurrection” in January 2021 or in Britain during widespread city riots earlier this month.
In fact, when compared with the British crackdown on “hate” speech, which now seems to include anti-government messages online, Hong Kong has been pretty lenient.
Hongkongers now spend their weekends shopping and dining on the mainland, even to the detriment of local businesses!
The arc of Hong Kong’s modern political history can be traced either through its failed democratisation in the style dictated by the West, or through its reunification with the nation after more than a century and a half of Western imperialism and reintegration through a tumultuous time in the 21st century.
The latter is the Chinese story that both Deng and Xi had worked to complete. That crucial chapter is now nearly finished.


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My Take

In Hong Kong, Xi has completed where Deng left off

President Xi Jinping meets with Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) John Lee in Beijing in December 2023. Photo: ISD

As China celebrates Deng Xiaoping’s legacy, the country is again at a crossroads

 Illustration: Brian Wang

Deng Xiaoping puts on a cowboy hat presented to him at a rodeo near Houston during his 1979 visit to the United States. Photo: Reuters

The then-vice-chairman Deng Xiaoping delivers the closing address at the party’s 11th national congress in Beijing on August 24, 1977. Photo: AP

Honour reformer Deng Xiaoping by realising China’s revival, Xi Jinping urges nation

Deng Xiaoping is heralded as the “architect” of China’s economic reform, transforming a poor, backward country into a global superpower. Photo: AFP

A modern, powerful China the legacy of Deng Xiaoping, born 120 years ago

A bronze statue of Deng Xiaoping in Lianhuashan Park in Shenzhen. Deng championed reforms with a dogged pragmatism and a willingness to be flexible that amazed many, including in the West. Photo: Shutterstock

Chinese paramount leader Deng Xiaping (right) shaking hands with Chinese President Jiang Zemin at the end of the 14th Party Congress in Beijing in 1992. Photo: AFP

Deng Xiaoping visits Nippon Steel’s Kimitsu plant in Japan in 1978. Photo: Xinhua

An artwork titled “Coexistence 3D Mao” by artist Seoung Lee is displayed during the Affordable Art Fair Hong Kong. While Mao Zedong, founder of the People’s Republic of China, coined the phrase, “seek truth from facts”, it was Deng who actually drove the pragmatic policies inherent in that maxim. Photo: Yik Yeung-man

Chinese President Xi Jinping is deepening the reforms set in motion by Deng more than 45 years ago. Photo: Xinhua

The seeds of Deng Xiaoping’s legacy have yielded remarkable progress

Tourists pose for a photo in front of a bronze statue of the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping near his birthplace in Guangan, Sichuan province, on August 14. Photo: Kyodo

Tourists enjoy a light show in the Lujiazui area of Pudong in Shanghai in 2020: Photo: Xinhua

Opinion

The city’s destiny was always about unification and integration, not democratisation or meeting Western expectations


The city’s destiny was always about unification and integration, not democratisation or meeting Western expectations.


Hong Kong

China

Xi Jinping

China’s Communist Party

Hong Kong politics

Communist Party politics

China leadership

Hong Kong society

Hong Kong national security law (NSL)

Chinese history

Hong Kong protests

Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


Column

My Take | In Hong Kong, Xi has completed where Deng left off

The city’s destiny was always about unification and integration, not democratisation or meeting Western expectations