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      in Elections

      China Exerts a Heavier Hand in Hong Kong With Mass Arrests

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storynews analysisWith Mass Arrests, Beijing Exerts an Increasingly Heavy Hand in Hong KongThe central Chinese government, which once wielded its power over Hong Kong with a degree of discretion, has signaled its determination to openly impose its will on the city.Police officers escorting Andrew Wan, a pro-democracy politician who recently resigned from Hong Kong’s legislature, after his arrest along with more than 50 others on Wednesday.Credit…Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesVivian Wang, Austin Ramzy and Jan. 6, 2021Updated 9:54 a.m. ETHONG KONG — They descended before dawn, 1,000 police officers fanning out across Hong Kong to the homes and offices of opposition lawmakers, activists and lawyers. They whisked many off in police cars, often without telling relatives or friends where they were being taken.Within a few hours on Wednesday, the Hong Kong police had arrested 53 people, searched 76 places and frozen $200,000 of assets in connection with an informal primary for the pro-democracy camp — all under the auspices of Beijing’s new national security law. In one swoop, the authorities rounded up not only some of the most aggressive critics of the Hong Kong government but also little-known figures who had campaigned on far less political issues, in one of the most forceful shows of power in the Chinese Communist Party’s continuing crackdown on the city.The message was clear: Beijing is in charge.The mass arrests signaled that the central Chinese government, which once wielded its power over Hong Kong with a degree of discretion, is increasingly determined to openly impose its will on the city. In the months since the law took effect, Beijing and the Beijing-backed Hong Kong leadership have moved quickly to stamp out even the smallest hint of opposition in the Chinese territory, where the streets once surged with huge pro-democracy protests.The security law, which was enacted in June, has been the most visible tool of the crackdown. With the seeming blessing of Beijing, the Hong Kong authorities have been given the power to interpret the law as they see fit, taking advantage of vague parameters that criminalize anything the government considers to be acts of terrorism, secession, subversion or collusion with foreign powers.The informal primary last July, for example, had little political import, since the Hong Kong government ultimately postponed the election. Even so, it provoked a coordinated show of official force on Wednesday that more than doubled the number of people ensnared under the law. And Hong Kong rounded them up while its most vocal critics, the United States and Britain, were distracted by their own political and health crises.Campaign flags during an informal primary election in July for Hong Kong’s pro-democracy legislative candidates.Credit…Isaac Lawrence/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“The difference of the national security law from every other piece of legislation is that the national security law will not wait until the worst has happened,” said Ronny Tong, a member of the cabinet that advises Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive. “Every single piece of national security law is aimed at preventing the occurrence of the worst.”The Hong Kong government itself was more direct. In a statement Wednesday evening, the government said it would “take resolute enforcement action to achieve a deterrent effect.”In a matter of months, Beijing has also upended the rules that have governed Hong Kong since the former British colony returned to Chinese control in 1997. The Chinese government bypassed Hong Kong courts in November and issued its own decision to order the removal of four opposition lawmakers. By doing so, it circumvented Hong Kong’s local constitution, which limits the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s top legislative body, to making amendments or interpretations, legal scholars said.The move all but obliterated the pro-democracy bloc of the city’s legislature. After the ouster, the 15 remaining opposition lawmakers resigned in protest, leaving an entirely Beijing-friendly group of lawmakers.Beijing is reaching into nearly every sector of society. In recent months, the Hong Kong government has ordered civil servants to take oaths of office that emphasize the city is a part of China. Pro-Beijing politicians have called for reforms to the city’s independent judiciary, raising fears that it could become like the party-controlled courts in the mainland. Officials have also promised to redesign school curriculums to ensure that students are being taught “patriotism” and a sense of Chinese national identity.People lining up to vote in the primary. More than 600,000 Hong Kongers participated.Credit…Vincent Yu/Associated PressFor many democracy supporters, the question is not whether Beijing will assert itself again, but when.“We cannot fantasize that, as long as we listen to the Chinese Communist Party, as long as we stop protesting in the streets, the party will let go of us,” said Li Chi-wang, a district councilor.Many worry that Beijing will move next against the district councilors, a hyperlocal elected position, after the opposition’s landslide victory in 2019. Any mass disqualifications could leave the pro-democracy camp without a single foothold in elected office in Hong Kong.The government has already announced plans to reform a mandatory high school civics course, known as liberal studies, that pro-Beijing figures have accused of radicalizing Hong Kong’s youth. University professors have described a chill on their campuses, as administrators try to prevent any national security violations. The legal scholar Benny Tai, who was arrested on Wednesday, was fired by the University of Hong Kong last year in relation to antigovernment protests in 2014.Of special concern is the judiciary, considered one of the few remaining bulwarks against Beijing’s influence. In recent months, pro-Beijing newspapers have issued front-page denunciations of judges deemed overly lenient on protesters. A Chinese legal scholar called for the trial of Jimmy Lai, the pro-democracy media tycoon who was arrested in August on national security charges, to be transferred to the mainland.Jimmy Lai, a pro-democracy media tycoon, at his Hong Kong home in August, days after his arrest on national security charges.Credit…Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesThe primary election, which drew more than 600,000 voters, was another red line. Hong Kong officials had said that holding the election could amount to subversion, citing opposition figures’ statements that, if elected, they would seek to use a majority in the legislature to block government proposals.In particular, many candidates had said that they would seek to utilize a provision in Hong Kong law that forces the city’s chief executive to step down if legislators veto a proposed budget twice.Establishment leaders suggested the opposition was foolish to challenge Beijing by seeking to paralyze the government.“Last July both the central government and the Hong Kong government had warned these people,” said Lau Siu-kai, a former Hong Kong government official who is now a senior adviser to Beijing.Still, many critics of the government were left reeling by the arrests, not only because of their scale, but also because — as many pointed out — the supposed offense was authorized in Hong Kong’s own law.Legislators are “granted the right to disapprove budgets introduced by the government,” Civil Human Rights Front, a pro-democracy group, said. “Through the primary election, the candidates only exercised their rights to debate their political stance, and the electors had the freedom to elect those who are in their favor.”But Mr. Tong, the cabinet member, said that those rights could not infringe on national security. “On the face of it,” he said, it is the right of lawmakers to veto legislation, “but if you think more about it, it is not.”The willful vetoing of proposals without really considering them would amount to a breach of lawmakers’ duties, he added.Officials have indicated that their work is far from finished. A senior police superintendent told reporters on Wednesday that officers might make more arrests in connection with the primary election. The Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government, Beijing’s official arm in Hong Kong, called for vigorous enforcement of the law.“Only when Hong Kong’s national security law is fully and accurately implemented, and firmly and strictly enforced, can national security, Hong Kong’s social stability and public peace be effectively guaranteed,” the office said in a statement.Perhaps the clearest sign of Beijing’s desire to flex its power was in whom the authorities chose to arrest.Until Wednesday, those arrested under the national security law had largely been prominent activists, or people openly demonstrating against the government, such as a man who collided into police officers on a motorcycle while at a rally, or students who the police said had shouted pro-independence slogans.But the latest arrests showed that the authorities were willing to punish any participation in pro-democracy activities, however mild or low profile.Jeffrey Andrews, a social worker of Indian descent who was born and raised in Hong Kong, was known more for his work helping members of ethnic minority groups than for fiery slogans. Mr. Andrews ran in the primary and finished last in his race.Lee Chi-yung also placed last in his region. While his opponents in the primary had emphasized their antigovernment bona fides, Mr. Lee’s campaign was devoted to a different issue: promoting accessibility in Hong Kong, in memory of his late daughter, who had used a wheelchair all her life.“When Hong Kongers tried to express their views, whether through district council elections or primaries, the government chose not to listen,” Lo Kin-hei, the chairman of the Democratic Party, said in a news conference. “Instead, they took revenge.”“If even a primary election can be twisted into something that can endanger national security, then this country’s national security is very fragile indeed,” he added.A billboard promoting China’s national security law in Hong Kong in June.Credit…Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      in World Politics

      Xi Jinping’s Tibetan Summer of Love

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      As reported by Al Jazeera, China’s President Xi Jinping is seeking to realize the traditional Chinese ideal of harmony within the borders of Tibet. He has a threefold goal: Xi wants to “build an ‘impregnable fortress’ to maintain stability in Tibet, protect national unity and educate the masses in the struggle against ‘splittism.’”

      Anyone familiar with Chinese culture knows the central, practically sacred place that the value of harmony holds. It has both a spiritual and social dimension. It accounts for the ability of Chinese emperors in the past — as well as today’s Communist Party — to hold in tow a large and diverse population over a vast expanse of territory. It works by inducing attitudes of conformity and disciplined behavior that serve to maintain public order. Most Chinese accept this as a rational principle and an essential feature of their culture. People hailing from the individualistic cultures of the West still have trouble grasping this fact.

      The concept derives from the dynamics of music that in ancient times infused Chinese culture. Harmony is not unison. It always implies the combining of divergent elements whose different principles of resonance produce sounds that converge in an agreeable or intriguing way. Dissonance that points to resolution within the dynamics of music is a necessary ingredient. This is true of every musical tradition. Elizabethan poet and composer Thomas Campion expressed this in the simplest terms in his poem, “Rose-Cheeked Laura”: “These dull notes we sing/ Discords need for helps to grace them.”

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      Xi appears not to be too fond of discord, even when it is needed for the sake of true harmony. The Chinese government has even invented a barbarous word that English translators appear to have accepted because a more conventional translation, such as “separatist,” fails to convey its deeper meaning. That word is “splitism.” Unlike separatism, which supposes two potentially autonomous entities, splitism designates something akin to a violation of the integrity of a territory, a people or a culture. It is an attack on unison voicings.

      Concerning the status of Tibet, a territory, like Xinjiang, potentially guilty of splitism, Xi offered a practical suggestion demonstrating his unorthodox conception of harmony. Al Jazeera summarizes Xi’s message: “Political and ideological education needed to be strengthened in Tibet’s schools in order to ‘plant the seeds of loving China in the depths of the hearts of every youth.’”

      Here is today’s 3D definition:

      Seeds of loving:

      Active principles of emotional orientation that can be based either on the authentic concern for the good of the other or on a policy of intimidation sufficiently strong in its negative force to appear superficially to resemble deep and spontaneous affection for the object of one’s fear.

      Contextual Note

      Xi’s concerns with the hearts of young Tibetans and his idea that they may be fertile ground for “seeds of loving” radically distorts the traditional notions of both harmony and love he seeks to promote. The questions every society must ask itself are, “What is harmony?” and “What is love?”

      In both Chinese and Western music, harmony implies the physical notion and even cosmological notion of sympathetic resonance. One student of Chinese musical culture describes harmony as an “inner dialectic between the creation and resolution of tension and, by extension, a similarly nuanced relationship.” Thomas Campion would undoubtedly agree. In other words, harmony is not the effect of unison or forced imitation, but of the coming together or the resolution of diverse discords.

      Xi’s idea of love appears to radically differ from that of Lao Tzu, who famously said: “Go to the people. Live with them. Learn from them. Love them. Start with what they know. Build with what they have.” If it resonates with anything, rather than with Lao Tzu, Xi’s concept recalls the traditional right-wing slogan cast in the face of protesters against the US war in Vietnam: “Love America or leave it.” Xi wants Tibetan youth to love China, but, in contrast with Lao Tzu, he is unwilling to learn from them. They must learn from him.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Perhaps Xi is seeking to distinguish China from the decidedly superficial and jaded West that no longer pays attention to its youth. US politicians have clearly become indifferent to “the depths” within the hearts of the younger generations. China at least thinks about its youth. 

      US President Donald Trump has dismissed this generation’s young protesters as “anarchists and agitators” who must be reined in by a strict policy of “law and order.” He has shown some love for the 17-year-old vigilante Kyle Rittenhouse who killed two protesters, but the president is doing everything within his power to prevent young people from voting. The Democratic National Convention underscored the startling fact that it has consciously abandoned the youth-oriented movement led by Bernie Sanders, a movement that was clamoring for health care, social justice, reduced military engagement and relief from oppressive debt. The Democrats consider all these issues, which are truly “at the depths” of young voters’ hearts, as irrelevant to their overriding mission of electing a man with no vision for the future, who will turn 80 in his first term.

      Al Jazeera reports on Xi’s vision of the future: “Pledging to build a ‘united, prosperous, civilised, harmonious and beautiful new, modern, socialist Tibet,’ Xi said China needed to strengthen the role of the Communist Party in the territory and better integrate its ethnic groups.” And it will all be done in the name of harmony.

      Chinese political analysts and apologists claim that “China’s long tradition of thinking about harmony makes it uniquely able and disposed to exercise soft power in world politics.” In the realm of geopolitics, Xi claims to understand the value of the concept of soft power, an idea initially proposed by Joseph Nye to contrast with the hard power of military might.

      That may or may not be true. But internally, Xi mobilizes the same soft-power rhetoric, including the appeal to harmony, to justify a policy of hard power designed to enforce something more like conformity than harmony. On the international front, Xi understands that since the United States, under the past three presidents, has allowed military power and economic sanctions to define its foreign policy, by doing the opposite — notably thanks to the Belt and Road Initiative — China could emulate the success the US had with its Marshall Plan for Europe following World War II.  But can China achieve this goal in harmony with the nations it is bringing on board? That is a moot question.

      Historical Note

      Xi’s conception of the concept of harmony is innovative in the sense that it diverges from tradition. In her book, “Music Cosmology and the Politics of Harmony in Early China,” Erica Fox Brindley places the origins of the Chinese concept of harmony in ancient times, when “conceptions of music became important culturally and politically.” Xi’s musical tastes as demonstrated in this official government rap song appear to have little in common with the contemplative character of traditional Chinese music. Xi’s wife is a famous singer, but the harmony of her music on display in this patriotic song demonstrates greater respect for conventional Western harmony than it does for the Chinese musical tradition.

      While explaining the roots of the concept in Chinese spirituality and “protoscientific beliefs on the intrinsic harmony of the cosmos,” Brindley reminds her readers that the “rhetoric of harmony in the People’s Republic … is complicated.” The author identifies the Zuo Zhuan — one of the earliest works of Chinese history composed before 500 BC — as the “locus classicus for defining the term ‘harmony’ in ancient China.” Harmony refers “not merely to the conformity of similar items but to an appealing admixture of many diverse ones.” Xi’s current admixture reflects little more than the combination of stale Western trends with Chinese pop vocal style.

      There is a traditional saying in Chinese, lǐ yuè bēng huài, which literally means “rites and music are in ruins.” As Jamie Fisher explains on his website dedicated to learning Mandarin, the idiom “refers to a society in disarray.” Xi would claim that his new rites and music are solidly built and are a protection against the prospect of ruin that the entire world is facing. Lao Tzu might disagree, at least concerning the methods employed.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      The 2020 Pandemic Election

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      When the COVID-19 pandemic is dissected in the 2020 presidential election debates, Donald Trump will be at a disadvantage. The coronavirus has killed over 100,000 Americans and maimed thousands more. The caveat is that deaths per capita, rather than total deaths, better measure national failure, and by that metric the US fares better than Belgium, […] More