Hong Kong protests: China is winning the information war
It has now been six months since the latest pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong began, and the stakes are now higher than ever for both sides. The protestors’ resolve to resist Beijing’s commands has hardened and the Chinese government’s authorities in the city have sought to tighten their vice upon the demonstrators. The violence has become quotidian, and police brutality is now a new normal.
Aside from state-endorsed violence, Beijing is also employing more subtle coercive methods to discourage Hong Kong’s citizens from engaging in opposition to the regime. The authorities are employing what is being called “white terror”, including a form of persecution by paperwork which threatens the livelihoods of those who are taking part in the protests.
In August, for instance, a directive was sent by China’s Civil Aviation Authority to the airline group, Cathay Pacific. The contents of the directive were circulated to employees via an email. The email, seen by Reaction, stated that “Cathay Pacific Group employees who support or take part in illegal protests, violent actions, or overly radical behaviour shall be immediately suspended”.
Yet, by raising the stakes in the expectation that, sooner or later, the opposition will fold, the Chinese authorities have also politicised those who were not previously opposed to the Beijing regime. One former dissident, who took part in the Occupy Central demonstrations in 2014, and who is now studying in the US, told me that “the anti-extradition movement does serve as an awakening for many HK people who used to be quiet in politics and about the influence of China”.
Comparing the protests in Hong Kong today with the occupy movement from five years ago, he told me that “it felt like a utopia back then if we compare it with the situation in Hong Kong now.” In 2014 the police chose not to actively clear away the occupation in Admiralty, but now there is a much more “spontaneous” and volatile quality to events, and he described today’s protestors as being much more “like guerrillas”.
The changed mood from four years ago is perhaps epitomised by a video put up on Instagram TV yesterday by the Free Hong Kong group. It transposes distressing videos of police violence directed at unarmed protestors with the voice of Carrie Lam imploring citizens to “say no to violence”. Footage of police firing tear gas canisters, beating protestors with batons, and detaining individuals punctuates the official message from Beijing calling for an end to the cycle of demonstration and counter-demonstration.
Hong Kong’s citizens have also sought to fight back using the power of the ballot box. An indication of the extent of the support and sympathy for the demonstrators was shown last week when the candidates of Hong Kong’s Pan-Democracy parties won almost 90% of the 452 district council seats up for grabs in an election held on Sunday 24th November. The Pan-Democrats, buoyed by these results, have now launched moves in Hong Kong’s legislature to remove Lam from office, accusing her of “unconstitutional decisions” and “serious breaches of law”.
Now, the determination of the protestors in Hong Kong has inspired the disaffected on the Chinese mainland. The blaze of revolt has spread to Guangdong province. Residents of the town of Wenlou, which lies about 60 miles from Hong Kong, have taken to the streets to oppose an unpopular local government policy. Here, protests began last Thursday 28th November in opposition to the plans by the local Communist Party to build a crematorium in an area which officials had previously said would become an ecological park.
The Wenlou protestors have drawn on the symbols of protest used by their Hong Kong counterparts. Hundreds marched upon the township offices brandishing umbrellas in imitation of demonstrators in nearby Hong Kong. They have issued their own “Five Demands” which, although more circumscribed, remain confrontational. They include requests that local officials free arrested prisoners, make an inquiry into police brutality, provide payment for damages, and abandon the crematorium project.
Across the Chinese mainland as well as Hong Kong and Xinjiang, citizens are coming into contact with the paranoid and punitive streaks of Beijing’s police state. They are discovering the truth of the remarks made by the Taiwanese intellectual and writer, Lung Yingtai – that Chinese society functions well for those who “live happily under the net without realising there is a net”, but that anyone who dares to breach its limits comes face to face with the realities of authoritarian power.
The escalation of the protestors’ demands in Hong Kong and Guangdong has set them on a collision course with the Communist Party authorities. For now, these authorities are winning the information war.