French Sinologist: Xi Jinping may take more radical steps against Hong Kong
#Interview
(19 Nov) The French newspaper Le Figaro interviewed François Godement, a sinologist, on the evening of 18th. Godement said that Beijing was implementing dictatorship under no disguise. Towards Hong Kong, Beijing will force the Hong Kong government to take more radical steps, but this risks uniting the Hong Kong people even more.
In response to the intensified conflicts and the siege of PolyU in Hong Kong, Le Figaro interviewed François Godement, adviser for Asia at the French think-tank Montaigne Institute.
He said that the situation in Hong Kong was already out of control, as the peaceful protests in the past few months achieved one goal only: the withdrawal of the Extradition Bill. The failure to heed any of the remaining demands led to more radical measures adopted by the protestors, and the suppression of the Hong Kong police turned more violent. Xi Jinping originally thought that the protests in Hong Kong would die down gradually, but he was wrong. “Thus we can now see that Beijing and the Hong Kong government are in a race, on one side is the suppression of the Hong Kong police, on the other the various instructions of Beijing.”
Godement said that Xi used the toughest wordings so far in his talk on Hong Kong at the BRICs leaders’ meeting on 14 Nov. In his speech, Xi attempted to rationalize all actions by Beijing to implement the Hong Kong Basic Law with the reason that the Hong Kong people “did not abide by the principles of One Country Two Systems”.
As for the appearance of Chinese People’s Armed Police on the streets of Hong Kong, he said that those were stationed in Hong Kong, and the message was twofold: First, this police force could be mobilized anytime; second, and more importantly, this police force was not under the deployment of the Hong Kong government, which meant that China could intervene anytime.
When asked about Beijing’s strategy in defusing the crisis, Godement said that the Hong Kong government’s current strategy was to trap the protestors inside PolyU so that they could not retreat, and the means used may well be very violent. “But I believe that Beijing will force the government and the Hong Kong police to use more radical means. The risk of this strategy lies in uniting the Hong Kong people even more.”
Le Figaro’s reporter asked whether China’s military intervention was a credible hypothesis at the moment. Godement said that military intervention was a last resort - when China thought that its legitimacy was under threat. And currently, this stage was not far away.
In the beginning, he said, we thought that the central government would intervene when the Hong Kong economy was affected or when the international image of China was damaged. Apparently, Xi cared about neither. Godement said, “Don’t overestimate the sensitivity of Beijing towards its international image. They’ve had a lot of controversy already. Take the example of the Uyghur re-education camps recently revealed by the New York Times, the situation is much more serious than the current state of Hong Kong.”
The reporter followed up on whether Beijing’s Xinjiang policy could be seen as a threat to Hong Kong.
Godement said that Beijing was having an authoritarian rule under no disguise, or even dictatorship. This could be clearly seen since the 2014 explosion attack in the Xinjiang Urumqi railway station. “This means that the Communist Party firmly believes that people, opinion, religion, or even recognition could be molded, while political propaganda, police, and technology could all be effective tools of control over time.”
People of Hong Kong fear that such policies would be applied to them one day. The closer to 2047, the more obvious Beijing’s control will be.
As for the long-term risk of suppression, Godement said that once the machinery of the Communist Party had started, it would not stop.
The outlook for Hong Kong citizens are truly grim. Currently, the HKSAR government is still utilizing mechanisms from the British colonial era, such as the “occasion of emergency”, to restore order. “We can infer that it is Beijing who forced these strategies upon Hong Kong [government].”
Source: New Talk Taiwan
https://bit.ly/2QFKHyy
#PolyUSeige #Totalitarian #Xi #PLA