Reblog:Under the surface, a very different Hong Kong story

BYMICHAEL EDESESS

Link to article here

NEWS

Under the surface, a very different Hong Kong story

BYMICHAEL EDESESS9 HOURS AGO

• The widely reported narrative that Beijing tried to impose a law to snatch dissidents from Hong Kong in 2019 was never true
• Peaceful demonstrators quickly fled the protests as they realized something dark, violent, and well-organized lay just below the surface
• The media simply relayed stories and numbers they were given by one side, failing to do their jobs to investigate and report
• The allegation that “police brutality” was the issue was simply false: Hong Kong is a low-crime city with good relations between citizens and law enforcement

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THERE ARE TWO STORIES about what happened in Hong Kong in 2019.

One, portrayed in Western media, says Beijing broke its “one country, two systems” promise and encroached on the freedoms of Hongkongers, who bravely responded with massive pro-democracy protests that were met with police brutality.

The other says that organizers of violent riots were funded by the U.S. to pay rioters and special consultants who taught them how to make the compliant Western press write that they were pro-democracy protesters fighting against repression and police brutality.

Guess which one is true.

EYEWITNESS EVIDENCE

Unlike the multitude of offshore armchair commentators expressing their views on the violent social upheaval that began in June 2019, I lived in Hong Kong through that period, as did Nury Vittachi, whose eyewitness investigative journalism I will discuss.

We each saw, directly, what was happening.

NEW YORK TIMES FEATURE

On October 14, 2014, an op-ed was published in The New York Times titled, “Hong Kong’s Pop Culture of Protest,” by Vittachi, a Sri Lanka-born journalist living and writing in Hong Kong since 1987.

The op-ed celebrated the protest known as the “Umbrella Movement” that was under way in Hong Kong at the time. Vittachi explained that the protest was about “rejecting the influence of Beijing over Hong Kong’s next election.”

I visited the central site of that protest at that time, and I, too, felt the celebratory atmosphere. Protests in two of the busiest areas of Hong Kong, the business district known as Central, and Nathan Road, the main thoroughfare in the Mongkok district, had filled the streets and brought traffic to a standstill. The double-decker buses that traverse Nathan Road, near where I lived – as many as hundreds per hour – had found ways around the blockages and were otherwise carrying on as usual, as if they were genially accommodating the protests.

The 2014 protest was well-organized and well-led, with large numbers of expensive tents. Image by Underbar DK/ Wikimedia Commons

When I visited the protest site in Central, I marvelled at its vast expanse of colourful upscale tents, of the type you find at Patagonia. They were shelters for the huge number of protesters camped out there.

My first thought was, “When this is over, perhaps the city planners will realize what a boon to the city it would be to turn this downtown area into a pedestrian mall.”

I also thought for a brief moment, “I wonder how they pay for all these tents? They aren’t cheap.” Hong Kong is a rich city, though most of its residents aren’t.

CONFUSED MESSAGE

Another thought that occurred to me was that if someone didn’t know who the leader of this movement was, they would think it was John Lennon, because his picture was everywhere and his song, “Imagine,” filled the air.

This was curious because the protests were presumably anti-Communist, but Lennon himself described the song as “virtually the Communist Manifesto,” with its dreams of ending private property and religion.

THE BACKGROUND

In 1842, Hong Kong island was seized by force during the Opium War from China by Britain. Additional territory was added to the city later, with the largest part area-wise, the New Territories, being annexed in 1898 by a 99-year gunboat-lease agreement with China. Therefore, it seemed appropriate to China to request the entire city back at the end of that lease in 1997.

A waxwork reconstruction of the 1984 meeting between Deng Xiaoping and Margaret Thatcher at a Shenzhen visitor attraction. Picture by Brücke-Osteuropa/ Wikimedia Commons

An agreement was struck in the Sino-British Joint Declaration in 1984 for the territory to be handed back to China in 1997. That event was subsequently called “the handover.”

In the joint declaration, China agreed that Hong Kong would be governed by a doctrine of “one country, two systems,” in which it would keep its form of government, legal systems and policies including its free speech and press traditions for at least 50 years following the handover.

This agreement was to be elaborated in a Hong Kong mini-constitution known as the Basic Law, negotiated by a committee of Hong Kong and mainland China officials.

UNDEMOCRATIC PAST

One provision of the Basic Law was that Hong Kong’s chief executive – its top official – would be elected by universal suffrage, something that had never happened when the British were in charge. Although 92% of Hong Kong’s population are Chinese, the chief executive under the British was an unelected British official appointed by the Queen.

The actual wording of the provision is as follows:

• “The method for selecting the Chief Executive shall be specified in the light of the actual situation in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and in accordance with the principle of gradual and orderly progress. The ultimate aim is the selection of the Chief Executive by universal suffrage upon nomination by a broadly representative nominating committee in accordance with democratic procedures.”

Hongkongers had agitated after the handover for realization of that provision. In August 2014 Hong Kong’s civil service finally promulgated a process by which the chief executive would be elected. The election would be by universal suffrage, but the nominees would be screened and vetted by a 1,200-strong committee of Hongkongers, much the same committee that had been electing the chief executive since the handover. The majority of that committee were representatives of Hong Kong business communities. Since they did a lot of business with the mainland, it was believed – generally correctly – that they tended to have mainland sympathies, or to be “pro-Beijing.”

UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE REJECTED

Many Hongkongers who had been participating in peaceful pro-democracy protests over the years – including Vittachi – interpreted this as a failure to adhere to the promise of free elections, though it was definitely not in violation of the Basic Law’s actual wording. Vittachi, a widely-read journalist in Hong Kong, gave rise to a viral meme by saying that the proposal to vet the nominees amounted to a “choose your own puppet” election.

The pan-democrats – the pro-democracy faction – rejected the offer.

The unfortunate result, from Hong Kong’s perspective – and from everybody else’s, it turns out – was that the chief executive continued to be elected by that 1,200-strong committee, not by universal suffrage.

NEED FOR EXTRADITION LAW

Hong Kong was behind other jurisdictions in the passing of an extradition law recommended by the United Nations Model Treaty on Extradition, which “urges all States to strengthen further international co-operation in criminal justice” and “urges Member States to inform the Secretary-General periodically of efforts undertaken to establish extradition arrangements.”

Most jurisdictions worldwide had extradition treaties with most other jurisdictions worldwide, but Hong Kong had few.

As Vittachi noted, “Britain had signed extradition treaties with numerous countries with utterly abysmal human rights records, such as Iraq and Zimbabwe. America had signed deals with the Congo, Myanmar and El Salvador, among others.”

MURDER MOST FOUL

When a Hong Kong man murdered his pregnant girlfriend during a joint holiday in Taiwan, and then escaped back to Hong Kong, he could not be tried for murder as Hong Kong criminal law does not apply in Taiwan.

A gruesome murder in Taiwan — Chan Tong-kai did not deny that he had killed Poon Hiu-wing (left); Police pictures

Neither could he be extradited due to that lack of a legal framework. This prompted Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam to take care of unfinished business by proposing an extradition law for Hong Kong in February 2019.

But the Hong Kong protestor inclination was to view this as a way for Beijing to snatch political protestors and try them in the mainland. (This inclination was fuelled by the fact that there had been incidents of Hong Kong booksellers who sold books critical of high-level mainland political figures being snatched, though it was not known how this happened or who did it.)

The proposed law would allow nothing of the sort, but it was seen nonetheless as another threat to the one country, two systems model.

SCARE STORIES

As a result, after scare stories about the proposed law had circulated widely, a massive peaceful protest took place on June 9. The protest leaders told the international media that a million people had participated in the march, and the international (i.e., Western) media dutifully printed that without checking. But any systematic count would have revealed that the number of marchers was far less.

It was, nevertheless, a massive turnout. Chief Executive Carrie Lam responded by welcoming the peaceful protest. But after more such protests, she responded to popular sentiment and withdrew the bill.

UTTER CHAOS

In spite of the withdrawal of the bill – to cover the next six months very, very briefly – the protests continued, then descended into utter chaos.

A violent faction became prevalent, commandeering the streets, invading, trashing and desecrating Hong Kong’s legislature (called Legco), hurling petrol bombs and bricks pried loose from Hong Kong’s streets at police and eventually shooting arrows, some flaming, and launching the bricks and bombs using catapults.

Shockingly violent incidents began on June 9, 2019 and continued for months, with almost all of Hong Kong’s MTR stations damaged, and huge amounts of damage to people and property. Image by Studio Incendio/ Unsplash

The protestors swarmed into Hong Kong’s metro stations and broke everything they could. They demolished Hong Kong’s world-class malls and stores and businesses that had any perceived relationships to mainland people or even to Mandarin speakers (Hong Kong’s spoken language is Cantonese while Mandarin is spoken on the mainland).

They killed one innocent bystander, set another on fire and beat up many who disagreed with them. They wounded many police officers, some severely.

In the end, they took over two university campuses, where they occupied bridges over heavily trafficked highways and threw large objects down on the traffic, set up weapons manufacturing stations, and battled police.

POLICE BLAMED

The rioters blamed the police, claiming “police brutality.” They spread rumors that police had killed a number of protestors, perhaps thousands.

Through all this, the Western press continued to call the riots “pro-democracy protests,” and the cause of those protests suppression by Beijing.

The much larger group of peaceful protesters drifted away from the demonstrations and no longer participated. Most of the erstwhile leaders of that group, called the pan-dems or pan-democrats, did not roundly condemn the rioters, not even when they presented their absurd “five demands, not one less!” which included the non-negotiable demands that they all be granted amnesty and that their protests not be called riots.

One of Vittachi’s readers made the Dave Barry-like comment: “They are literally rioting to protest against being defined as rioters,” he said, amazed. “You can’t make this stuff up.”

SCALES FALL FROM OUR EYES

In his book, “The Other Side of the Story: A Secret War in Hong Kong,” published in December 2020, Vittachi explained what happened.

Anyone with an interest in what has been happening in Hong Kong should read it, whether they have the least predisposition to agree with it or not.

Although nearly everybody in the United States will vehemently deny this, and say that it is propaganda from Beijing, it is obvious that it has much more than a grain of truth in it.

It is the truth.

PETROL BOMB TRAINING

Vittachi, in his role as a peripatetic journalist in Hong Kong for over 30 years, has cultivated a large number of followers and contacts, many of whom send him emails and messages and serve as his extended eyes and ears.

These people include financial executives as well as ordinary Hong Kong wives and mothers, students, and other contacts. Vittachi maintains “offices” at various coffee shops around the city where he meets with people to chat and get local opinions and observations.

He teaches courses at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the largest university in the city and was able to visit it during the last and final and most intense battle in November 2019, when the rioters occupied the campus and were surrounded by police.

The view from inside the burned-out Polytechnic University shows seven black-clad men guarding the entrance bridge. The world was told that the students were occupying the university, but out of about 1,600-occupiers, only 46 had any connection with the university. Picture by Nury Vittachi

There, he says, “I watched men train younger people how to do a long run-up and then release their missiles at ‘about 42 degrees’ so that they flew in a graceful curving arc, smashing into a pillar in the distance. In another area, masked archers were practicing the use of high-technology bow and arrow sets. Over in the swimming pool area, men were experimenting with different substances for Molotov cocktails to see which spread the furthest and burned for the longest period.”

THE REAL STORY

His network of ordinary Hongkongers and informers at high levels brought him the real story. The protestors were neither students nor at the universities but hired rioters.

When the occupiers of Hong Kong Polytechnic University finally gave up and filed out and surrendered to the police, it was found that of about 1,600 occupiers, only 46 had any relation to the university.

CASH WAS FLOWING

“Adults, youths, school children, and even domestic helpers have told me that they have been offered cash in significant amounts – sometimes thousands of Hong Kong dollars – to join the protests. Teachers tell me children from their schools, kids who were clearly under 18, were offered HK$300 each (that’s about US$40) to bulk up the numbers at protests. They just needed to turn up in black and do some shouting, throw a few bricks and that sort of thing.”

Who was paying them? “This year alone,” says Vittachi, “the U.S. has budgeted $643,000 (HK$5 million) for pro-U.S. anti-China activists in Hong Kong through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the CIA’s regime-change arm – but other large sums are being sent through other groups. These include the Open Technology Fund, which presents itself on its website as a non-profit independent organization but is a U.S. government-led operation to boost protester organizations’ communications capabilities.”

REVOLUTION CONSULTANTS

You don’t believe this? But it should be obvious. The United States has been funding government destabilization efforts in many countries for 70 years – and worse. Why should it be different now?

Part of the money was used to pay professional protest consultants, some of them from Serbia who were experienced from their anti-Milosevitch work, to teach protesters how to stage their activities so that journalists and photographers are led to photograph lone protesters being wrestled to the ground by police, feeding allegations of “police brutality.”

THE AFTERMATH

The stories the protesters told the Western media were almost all lies, but the Western media sopped them up.

Police brutality was not the cause of the riots. Police killed no one and harmed very few, considering the level of violence of the rioters. Vittachi noted that “The most recent Police Service Satisfaction Survey at the time was the one taken just last year, in 2018, in which 84% of respondents were either ‘quite satisfied’ or ‘very satisfied’ with the overall service performance of the police. Furthermore, 79% of respondents were either ‘quite confident’ or ‘very confident’ in the police.”

In any other city around the world, the military would have been called out to deal with that level of violence: but Hong Kong’s circumstances meant that the job was left to the local police. Image by Oscar Chan/Pexels

The United States should have such a police force. Referring to the way the story was reported by the Western media, Vittachi says: “Hong Kong police had instantly and miraculously been transformed overnight from one of the best-loved police forces in the world to the most brutal police force in the world.”

RIOTERS HOPED FOR BEIJING TANKS

The Hong Kong police, overwhelmed by the rioters, mostly stood back and let things happen, to preserve order as best they could in a very crowded city with substantial fire hazard from the Molotov cocktails that the rioters were throwing – even in underground MTR stations – and to avoid causing any deaths or serious injuries. Remembering Beijing’s brutal crackdown on protesters at Tiananmen Square in 1989 – an event that was annually commemorated by Hong Kong’s protest movement – there was a fear that Beijing would have to step in to quell the riots, and such a crackdown would occur again.

In fact, that was probably what the rioters – and their U.S.-based handlers – hoped for.

BEIJING’S SURPRISING PATIENCE

But instead, Beijing took a velvet-glove approach. The Hong Kong Basic Law had specified that:

• “The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall enact laws on its own to prohibit any act of treason, secession, sedition, subversion against the Central People’s Government, or theft of state secrets, to prohibit foreign political organizations or bodies from conducting political activities in the Region, and to prohibit political organizations or bodies of the Region from establishing ties with foreign political organizations or bodies.”

This would not be much different from security laws in many other countries, including the US, Australia, and numerous others.

But the Hong Kong government had not been able to enact such a law when it tried in 2003 due to the protest movement and suspicion of Beijing. Now, Beijing simply imposed such a law, and the Hong Kong government has been enforcing it strictly, applying it to those persons in Hong Kong who provided encouragement, aid and support to the violent riots and coordinated with foreign powers, most specifically the US.

This may not have been the endgame that anybody wanted, but at least Beijing didn’t crack down violently.

REPORTER’S REGRET

Vittachi now regrets that he didn’t support accepting Beijing’s half-a-loaf offer of democratic election of Hong Kong’s chief executive in 2014. I had written in 2016 that Hong Kong’s democracy seekers needed to go slow, but the recommendation was not taken.

“That was the key moment,” Vittachi says, “when Hong Kong could have moved towards being a Western-style democracy. But we missed it.”

And this is true. With the aid of the United States, Hong Kong was shifted from the path of greater – if not perfect – democracy to the path, at least for the time being, of less democracy.

Thanks a lot for the help.

Vittachi says of his long history of marching for Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems” ideal, “We were marching not against China, but in favor of China being its best self.”

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Michael Edesess is an economist and mathematician. An adjunct associate professor and visiting faculty member at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, he is also managing partner and special advisor at M1K LLC, and a research associate of the Edhec-Risk Institute.

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This article first appeared in Advisor Perspectives, a US financial on-line publication.

That is a lot of money set-aside to take down China : the ‘ anti-China influence fund in the Strategic Competition Act.

The mount of money set aside by USA to take down China could have been better utilized for real constructive work. Really.

See the report here and here.

China is a democracy by Lincoln’s definition: former Singaporean FM

Link to interview here from Global Times

Text as follows:

By Global TimesPublished: Jun 16, 2021 09:52 AM   

A student from a college in Nantong, East China’s Jiangsu Province, paints a picture with a CPC revolutionary theme on April 28. Photo: VCGEditor’s Note:

As tensions between China and the West continue to heat up, the Communist Party of China (CPC) has become the target of myriad attacks of the US-led Western countries. George Yeo, former Singaporean minister of foreign affairs, thinks this is because many in the West perceive China as a threat to American dominance in the world. Yet Yeo believes the nature of China’s rise is very different from that of the US – and hopefully Americans will eventually realize this. What does Yeo think of the development the CPC over the past 100 years? What are its challenges in the future? Why is China constantly being labeled as conducting “wolf warrior diplomacy?” Yeo shared his insights with Global Times (GT) reporters Li Aixin and Bai Yunyi. 

GT: Over the past two years, China’s diplomatic style has been considered by some as becoming increasingly tough. Some analysts even pin labels such as “wolf warrior diplomacy” on it. As a diplomatic professional, how do you view the phenomenon? 

Yeo：I’m not surprised that Chinese diplomats and spokespersons are being forced to reply to Western criticisms in a feisty way. Not all these criticisms are reasonable. Some of them are completely unreasonable. If nothing else, for China’s own domestic audience, it is important for Chinese diplomats and spokespersons to reply in a sharp and robust manner. Although I think sometimes a more effective way to reply is to be ironic, and it’s not a bad thing to smile more, even when you’re giving a very serious reply.

This label, “wolf warrior,” is a very “clever” label put by Western critics of China. China is put on the defensive. They criticize you, and the moment you criticize back in the same tone, you are a “wolf warrior.” Chinese people are trying to behave like Westerners. I ask some of my Western friends, do you think Western diplomats and Western commentators are also “wolf warriors?” They don’t like to reply to this question. In a way, China is giving back what it is being given. 

But it is not necessarily in China’s own interest. Sometimes it is better to be more humble, to be more elegant, like the way Chinese people are to other Chinese people. 

Rhetoric by itself is superficial. The key is winning the argument not only by words, but also by deeds. Say, Hong Kong, or Xinjiang. In the end, it’s a battle of the actual reality on the ground. And people who have experience of this reality, people who know the facts, are speaking up and telling the world what really is happening. It’s important for China to meet some of these criticisms and put more effort in laying out the facts.

The criticisms from the West are mounting, it’s a part of a larger strategy to put China on the defensive, to win over more allies against China, and to reduce China’s threat to Western dominance of the world. 

China is not a threat to America, but China is certainly a threat to American dominance in the world, just by growing and becoming more influential. There is a concerted effort to put China down. 

George Yeo Photo: Courtesy of Yeo

GT: As early as 2019, you raised the issue that the China-US rivalry will persist, fueling swings between “cold war and cold peace.” Could you elaborate on “cold peace?”

Yeo: A Cold War is like that between the US and the Soviet Union. It was marked by complete economic decoupling, and was accompanied by ideological warfare on many fronts and proxy conflicts. We are certainly not in the state of a Cold War between China and the US. I would describe the current situation as a kind of a “cold peace.” There is more competition than cooperation, more suspicion than trust. A certain degree of technological decoupling is inevitable. But, by and large, the US and China are still very closely integrated at many levels. It is a peace which is getting colder. And there is a danger that we may move in the direction of Cold War. I hope we will not because it can then become very dangerous.

GT: What do you think of the possibility of an outbreak of a military conflict between China and the US? If it occurs, how might Singapore and other Southeast Asian countries cope with this situation? 

Yeo: A military conflict between the US and China can engulf the whole world and be a huge setback to humanity. We need wisdom on both sides. Conflicts are natural. What worries me, in particular, is the way the Taiwan card is being played by the US. Henry Kissinger has reminded the Americans that US acceptance of Taiwan as part of China is the basis of US-China relations. This is not a card. This is the bedrock. If you start playing with the bedrock, you can bring down the whole structure of relations between two very big and important countries. 

Unfortunately, Congress has its own mind. And in the US, passions can be easily aroused. Sometimes the politics can overwhelm the administration. For example, if in the South China Sea or East China Sea, where the two navies and air forces are in close proximity, an accident happens and a few dozen American and Chinese servicemen die. Immediately on both sides there will be great anger and a great desire to escalate. China can keep the temperature under control. But, in the US, it may quickly go out of control. The problem will suddenly become much bigger. It is a possibility which China must carefully factor into its calculation.

For many countries in the world, especially for countries in Southeast Asia, China and the US are like father and mother to us. Whom do you love more? Father or mother? Children don’t like to be asked this question. I can imagine how every country in Southeast Asia feels about this dilemma. Frankly, no one wants to be involved. Everyone prefers to keep on the side and keep quiet.

GT: In your opinion, how likely is it for China to become a superpower equal to the US?

Yeo: China’s economy will overtake the US. In terms of PPP (purchasing price parity), China’s economy is already significantly bigger than that of the US. But in terms of per capita income, China is way behind the US and the US will continue to be the most advanced country in the world for a long time, because of its wealth, technology, stock of capital (not just in the US but worldwide), its financial system, and so on. 

But already, China is viewed as a threat to a lot of people because of its sheer size and because of the unity of the Chinese people. If China were like India, divided by language, religion, caste, I don’t think the US will be worried at all. You can be from Northeast China, Xinjiang or Guangdong, you can speak different dialects and have different accents, but you are Chinese especially for the Han people. The Han Chinese believe that they are all Yan Huang Zisun (descendants of Yan and Huang, ancient Chinese emperors). They believe in a common literature, in common heroes, and in a common history. That enables China to be united and extremely productive when it is united. 

Does it mean that China wants to be a super power the way the Soviet Union was or the way the US is – wanting to pass judgment in other countries or wanting to export its governing system and its philosophy to others? 

China is too old and wise to ever want such a thing. China will never want to be super power, because it knows such an ambition depletes you and would bring troubles upon yourself. Let’s be good neighbors, good friends, try and help each other. That is Chinese approach.

It’s a very different mentality from that of the West, which has a missionary tradition. The Americans, without embarrassment, call themselves an exceptional power with a manifest destiny, which is to spread its values to the whole world. That’s how it sees itself. The Soviet Union had the same self-conception. China, I don’t believe, will ever have such an instinct. It is certainly not in its history. It’s certainly not in its interest.

It is true that the US is used to being dominant everywhere in the world. I don’t think China wants to take over the US position as the world’s big brother. I think China is happy for the US to remain big brother so long as its own interests are not badly affected. There will be some inevitable conflict between the US and China and this will go on for many years. But one day the US will realize that China’s nature is different from the nature of the US. And because the natures are different, there is a greater possibility of coexistence and cooperation. China should persist, because this will decide war and peace in the world.

China will become a great power and be very influential. This will be a threat to the Western liberal system. There are many countries in the third world who are not Western and are also finding their way to the future. Western countries tell them that there’s only one way to the future, that the Western way is the only way. Now they see China has a different way.

To that extent, the fact of China’s success will challenge a conventional wisdom – that the only way is the Western way. Does it mean that the Western way is bad? There are many good things in the Western liberal system. We should learn from the good things and try to incorporate them into our own system. This is not a zero-sum game.

GT: What do you think are the similarities between China and Singapore in terms of national governance models? In which fields can the two learn from each other? 

Yeo: Singapore has a very different history. It was established as a trading post of the British East India company. Our legal systems, administrative systems, political systems, are all derived from the British model. But 3/4 of the people of Singapore are Chinese, they share common cultural characteristics with the Chinese people in China. I compare Singapore and China in this way – China is a big tree. Singapore is a tiny bonsai. They have similar genetics with common cultural genes. At one level, the political systems are very different. But at another level, they look strangely similar. 

One obvious comparison is the Communist Party of China and the People’s Action Party (PAP) in Singapore, which has been governing Singapore since 1959. People are surprised that the PAP has been able to govern Singapore through election after election, staying in power and looking after the welfare of Singaporeans. It is not a communist party, it’s a democratic party, but its organizational structure has Leninist roots. 

I know China is very intrigued with the PAP. When I was a minister in the Singapore government, as minister for health, for trade and industry, I received so many Chinese delegations studying about internet regulation, health care subsidies, free trade agreements… so many things. No other major country takes such a close interest in us. We do share many things in common. We do find it advantageous to share our experiences, good and bad, with China.

GT: The West has long criticized political models in some Asian countries and believes there is no real democracy in East and Southeast Asia. Do you think the US-style democratic system is suitable for East and Southeast Asian countries? Why? 

Yeo: My view of democracy goes back to the essence of democracy, to the Greek origin of what democracy is – which is the people as master. Abraham Lincoln talked about government of the people, by the people, for the people. By this definition, China is a democracy. 

But the debate of a democracy in the West is not about its essence, but by the way it is implemented. In Western system, voting is very important. The separation of powers, the executive judiciary… these are very important considerations in Western democratic forms. 

China’s philosophy about the moral basis of centralized governance goes back to Confucius and Laozi. How to govern is always at the center of Chinese philosophical thought. China will find its own way toward achieving the democratic idea. 

The best democracy is the one which is for the people, of the people and by the people, according to its history and culture. Even in Western democracy, there are wide variations. US federal system is not direct democracy. In the UK, you don’t vote for the prime minister, you vote for members of parliament. In Singapore and Australia, there’s compulsory voting. If you have compulsory voting in the US, the politics will change dramatically. So it is not as if there is one Western system. There is a multiplicity of Western systems.

What is democracy? In the end, we go back to its essence – governance of the people, by the people for the people. We go back beneath the structures and the systems. You can have the best structure and systems. You can still have a democracy controlled by a small group of people who are very wealthy. Or you can be like the Swiss, which is a confederation, where many decisions are taken at the level of the canton through referendums. This is very different from European democracy.

It is impossible for a US-style democratic system to work for East and Southeast Asian countries. 

It is very difficult for the rest of us to understand why so many Americans do not want firearms to be banned. How can you have a society where everyone can own a gun? But don’t forget the US was a frontier society until relatively recently and settlers needed guns at the frontier to protect themselves against all kinds of things. This is a part of America history and tradition.

But Asian societies are very different. If you have the kind of Western debate in Asia, if people lose face, they don’t go out and say let’s have a drink together afterward. No, they will remember and they want to take revenge. Take ASEAN meetings for example, we never vote, we always find consensus. If we can’t agree, we’ll find a way to delay a decision. We will put pressure but never force a vote.  Voting is not a magic solution. Can you imagine if we make decisions by voting in a family? Small things, yes. Big things, we never do that. It will break up the family.

Even in Japan, which has the trappings of a Western system, the way Japanese democracy operates is very Japanese. It goes back to their own historical traditions. The idea of factions within the LDP is openly recognized and accepted. You have a chief, you follow the chief, you stay loyal to the chief and Japanese democracy continues taking that into account. This is an inheritance from the daimyo system. When a member of parliament retires, the son or daughter takes over. And people accept it. 

China is an old civilization with 5,000 years of history. But China as a republic is very young. China only became a republic in 1911. How does China find consensus? In the old days you had the Chaoting (imperial government). But once you become a republic, how do you choose successors？ 

We have the Communist Party who represents the entire population. But even within the Communist Party there are millions of members, there are many layers. At the bottom you have elections at the village level. But beyond that, constant discussion and debate about who are better able to lead.

The problem in Chinese society has always been corruption. If corruption exists, whatever system you have, you no longer govern in the interest of common people. President Xi, by reversing the trend of corruption in China, has done Chinese society a very great favor. 

This is to me is his single greatest achievement. If China can continue to control corruption, its future will be very bright. 

But if you look at the history of corruption in China, it is a problem because China is a vast country and there are many layers of government. What goes on at the bottom, the central government may not know for a long time until something big happens. 

But today there is hope that with data analytics, you may be able to solve the problem of corruption being covered up at the lower levels. Whatever intermediate levels do, the information can still go to the central government directly. The central government cannot monitor every village, every town, every city. China is too big. But you can have computer systems to tell you whether a town or a city is healthy. The data analytics can enable the central government to discover or uncover the problems at the bottom. And local leaders will then be more careful. 

GT: Generally speaking, which do you think is more efficient in good governance, open one- party system or multi-party system?

Yeo: There is no simple answer to this question. I would say the most important factor is not the structure or the system. It is the moral quality of the people and their leaders. 

GT: What are your predictions about the persistence of the Communist Party of China? Why do you think is CPC’s biggest challenge?

Yeo: This year China celebrates the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the CPC.  The Communist Party was established as a result of China being in great disarray, when ordinary people suffered from terrible hardships, when China was ravaged by imperial powers. There were many ideas about how China should go forward, and most attempts at reform failed.

Looking back is always easy. Looking forward is always very difficult. China has got to look forward. To me, what is important in this 100th anniversary is to look back and learn and, learning from the past, keep going forward, to find a path that does not exist today. You can learn from other countries, but China’s path will be a unique path to the future. The most important quality to have is modesty. With modesty, one is always learning and avoids unnecessary mistakes. In the I Ching, out of the 64 hexagrams, only one is without any negative aspect, and that is “qian” (谦).

2 years on, what many did not see then.

Generation Brainwashed: Hong Kong Protests and US Cold War on China -Sharing a link

A youtube video by Numeves, a Canadian vlogger

the five eyes alliance and youtube

Australia, UK, Canada, USA and New Zealand formed an intelligence alliance called the Five Eyes

Check out this youtube video regarding censorship in youtube — it is insidious and depending on which country your VPN is from. It shows the reach of Five Eyes in the so-called democratic countries.

This is some form of brainwashing or withholding truths you would accuse China or Russia ( or any so-called authoritarian state) will do.

You could check out what contents were censored in regards to the Hong Kong protests, here and here from a Canadian vlogger.