Hong Kong’s voters haven’t simply rebuked Beijing. They have shredded Xi Jinping’s “Chinese Dream.” The challenge they just put to Xi’s narrative and the Chinese Communist Party’s credibility in their council election is hard to overstate.
As the South China Morning Post notes, “Of the 452 seats up for grabs, the pro-democracy camp netted 392 – comprising 347 pan-democrats and 45 independents who are friendly with the camp. The pro-establishment camp had to settle for the remaining 60. … Democrats also took control of 17 out of 18 district councils.” (Note that the council has a total of 479 seats, so nearly all of them were up for grabs.)
Think about the scale of this landslide.
Were this 86.7% majority result applied to the U.S. House of Representatives, it would mean a 377 seats controlled by one party. Applied to the Senate, it would mean only 13 or 14 Senators in the opposition party.
Chinese state media has unsurprisingly been reluctant to report these results. The news agency Xinhua observed only that 452 seats of 18 electoral districts have all been decided. Although the more internationally focused Global Times did report the democratic movement’s victory, it underplayed voter motives against Beijing.
Regardless, Xi has a big problem. Given a chance to vote on the last few months of protests, Hong Kongers have made it abundantly clear where they stand. And it’s with those taking to the streets, not with pro-Beijing chief executive Carrie Lam. Certainly not with Beijing, which has long claimed the protests are rooted in Western manipulation and a select few troublemakers. That lie has now been exposed.
Yet that’s just the start of Beijing’s problem. Because Hong Kongers aren’t just city residents, they’re also Chinese citizens. And now, in the only area of China where Chinese are allowed to vote freely, the vast majority have voted to reject Xi. The personal quality of this defeat should not be discounted. Xi’s vision centers on Chinese accepting a supreme Communist Party that delivers improved living standards and global power. Xi calls this his “Chinese Dream.”
But Hong Kongers have now proven that the dream is an authoritarian nightmare, and they want no part of it. Xi will view this as the start of a broader backlash against his rule.
Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing elements say that they’ll reflect, but it’s not at all clear how Xi can escape this maze of his own making. His Hong Kong policy is now caught between a dynamic economy he needs to protect, a citizenry he cannot control or persuade, and international attention, which only continues to grow. But democracy cannot coexist with Xi’s dream for long. Sooner or later, he’ll crush it or be crushed by it.
