The ever-swinging pendulum of public opinion - Yee Lee
#OpinionArticle
Upon the release of Hong Kong district council election result, the very first response from the Chinese government came from State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his visit to Japan: “Whatever happens, Hong Kong is China’s territory. Any efforts to create chaos in Hong Kong or to damage its stability and prosperity will not succeed."
Before this statement, I thought I had a good understanding of this scenario. Now I am completely mystified as he goes on to obfuscate matters. District council elections in Hong Kong are, after all, for the sole purpose of tackling local affairs, such as waste collection, recreation and transportation. None of the candidates or registered voters has ever touched upon the topic of whether Hong Kong is part of China. Associating the elections with Hong Kong’s sovereignty issues, the Chinese Foreign Minister appears to imply that the election result challenges China’s rule over Hong Kong. He has thus provided these elections with a meaning under the referendum. In fact, while Carrie Lam said the elections would bring Hong Kong back to a relatively calm and peaceful state, the Chinese Foreign Minister was literally linking these elections with “efforts to create chaos in Hong Kong and damage its stability and prosperity”.
The short and simple response from Wang reveals that the election result has been confirmed as a major political setback by China.
From an economic standpoint, remuneration received by a district council member throughout a 4-year tenure amounts to HK$5 million, which will include the member’s salary, allowance and all other compensations. Losing 241 seats in the district council will cost the pro-establishment camp a whopping total of HK$1-1.2 billion. This defeat, coupled with the inaccessibility to recreational funding they used to monopolize, will result in a tremendous financial loss for the pro-establishment camp.
Politically speaking, what Wang considered as “whatever” has happened. The camp also suffers from immense economic loss. Would this election be allowed to proceed if the communist members in both China and Hong Kong had foreseen such results?
Around two weeks ago, I predicted that district council elections would be cancelled due to the authoritarian government’s inability to accept defeat. I have watched videos from broadcaster Sam Ng’s YouTube channel recently. It turns out he has been reading several left-wing newspapers. He noticed that about a month ago, different columns and campaign advertisements on these newspapers started to call for a cancellation of district council elections on the basis of “violence within society.” This included a conversation with Kwok-him Ip, a top leader within the pro-establishment camp. Some acts of extreme vandalism were also speculated to be committed by seemingly disguised protesters in order to produce unpopular public opinion to call off the elections.
However, events took a surprising turn within 10 days. A number of media reported citizens’ complaints after full-on strikes and roadblocks. It appeared that these events swayed public opinion against the protesters. As a result, support for calling off the elections weakened. Manipulators within the Chinese Communist Party only hear what they want to hear. Placing great faith on the unswerving support from “iron votes”, the Chinese government believed this would be a sure win for their party due to, among other reasons, pro-establishment camp’s deep-rooted work in the local community, stronger inclination towards the camp in recent years and voters’ mistrust towards other candidates who appeared out of nowhere. Elections were to be proceeded.
Public opinion might have slightly swayed against the protesters, but there was a dramatic shift once police besieged students and protesters at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), drowning them in tear gas grenades. People were appalled by police handling of university students. Not only did their actions infuriate supporters for the protest (a.k.a. yellow ribbons), moderate centrists who originally sided with the government (a.k.a. light blue ribbons) also found the events unacceptable.
Within a short period of time, the pendulum of public opinion swung in favour of the protesters. Citizens were more outraged at police brutality than the inconvenience created by earlier road blockades. Even so, those with power continued to listen to what they wanted to hear, indulging in their insignificant increase in public support earlier but neglecting the shifting tides that came afterwards. This act of idiocy denotes their defect in morality as well as flaws in the political system. The defeat was, therefore, inevitable owing to their inability to react quickly to changing circumstances.
So why was everything all calm and peaceful during the last few days before and on election day? As manipulators were positive about a certain victory, there were no longer any disguised protesters to create chaos. By contrast, the protesters were extremely sensitive to public opinion despite having no official leader in the movement. Even though protesters in the frontline (a.k.a the “valorous”) could not see the purpose of elections under the “one country, two systems” framework, they did not want to sever ties with moderate protesters (a.k.a. the “peaceful, rational and non-violent”) and hence halted all actions in order to allow the elections to proceed in a peaceful manner. Meanwhile, citizens witnessed the ongoing callous siege by police at PolyU, which prompted voters to line up for hours to cast their ballots.
This election result is the outcome of an ever-swinging pendulum of public opinion. I believe most government officials today have not read Marxist theory of dialectical materialism and do not understand the law of “negation of the negation.” In philosophical terms, the law suggests an even stronger tendency towards affirmation, meaning the public will lean harder into anti-establishment sentiment.
There were 3 major surprises in district council elections: first, notwithstanding a huge disadvantage suffered by pro-establishment camp, communist members in Hong Kong did not call off elections; second, the atmosphere was unusually calm and peaceful before and on election day; third, pro-democracy camp managed to score an unprecedented landslide victory.
If such election result was indeed designed by the protesters through a tactic of “flexible adaptation,” that would mean they were also able to predict the minor shift of opinion against themselves for the sake of attracting fools to take the bait. If that were the case, these protesters would possess knowledge and wisdom beyond our understanding. Former assistant editor-in-chief of the University of Hong Kong student publication Undergrad Ya-ming Chan once said, “These are the finest protesters in the world, who deserve the cover of Time magazine.”
Source: Apple Dairy
https://hk.appledaily.com/local/20191127/O6JDTTH3V2L47IKPFIB6WFNMWY/
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