Before an earthquake hits, there are tiny indicators along tectonic fault lines that geophysicists think might tell us what’s coming. Along the proverbial Ring of Fire, political tremors in China have rippled for months. The escalating protests in Hong Kong are the result.
Last year, Hong Kong resident Chan Tong-kai killed his girlfriend during a visit to Taiwan and returned to Hong Kong. Police couldn’t extradite Chan because no extradition treaty exists between Hong Kong and Taiwan. To close this loophole, the Legislative Council of Hong Kong proposed the Fugitive Offenders and Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Legislation (Amendment) Bill 2019, which would allow Hong Kong to extradite fugitives to any country.
What residents worry about most is extradition to China.
Should the bill pass, legal scholars and Hong Kong residents rightly fear rendition to China for innumerable violations as the Chinese often exert control over Hong Kong business leaders and political officials despite the polite mantra of “one country, two systems” that allows Hong Kong to enjoy semi-autonomous economic status. It’s not a far-fetched idea that Hong Kong residents would become subject to overbearing Chinese laws and censorship.
So protests rage on with calls to withdraw the bill from consideration, among other demands. The rebuke to Beijing has been so severe that the Chinese released a propaganda video of the People’s Liberation Army simulating squelching a riot. What’s worse is China’s Hong Kong and Macau Office spokesman threatened protesters that “those who play with fire will perish by it.”
Perhaps China wouldn’t be paying as close attention to the exertion of will by Hong Kong were it not for the losses Beijing has been taking on the chin over the past several months.
Recently, the Chinese made concessions during trade negotiations including in areas where they have been historically belligerent and stalwart, such as intellectual property and copyright. With the exception of cutting agricultural imports from the U.S., the Chinese haven’t shown their teeth in the trade war against the U.S.
Furthermore, the U.S. Department of the Treasury reclassified China as a currency manipulator with the Yuan’s value diminished to its lowest point in more than a decade. This is either a desperate attempt by Beijing to deflate the value of goods to increase their ability to be sold abroad or is a signal to the U.S. of gains in our footing during negotiations.
In the region, Beijing has sat idly by as the Trump administration struck a multibillion-dollar arms deal last month with Taiwan, selling tanks and missiles to our ally in the Pacific.
And now President Xi has to respond to open rebellion in Hong Kong. This raises the question: Is the lifetime appointed president long for staying atop the pillars of power in Beijing? It’s a lazy trope of political scholars and commentators who follow China to say the Chinese are totally concerned with “saving face” or playing some long game of chess. They’re wrong, as Beijing pays close attention to success and often admires strength and demonstrable gains for the Chinese people in the short term as the barometer of success.
Which makes Xi and Beijing’s response to Hong Kong even more precarious. If he concedes to Hong Kong, Beijing logs a loss that will be notable to the Chinese people in a way that makes the “one country, two systems” as much of a lie as the “One China Policy” that the U.S. has pandered to in regard to Taiwan. Any further breakdown in trade negotiations where Beijing loses footing to the United States could put Xi on the chopping block.
Should Xi continue losing domestically and internationally, the likelihood of a no confidence push within the Communist Party could increase dramatically. In the New Yorker, China specialist Victor Shih wrote, “[Xi] would need to commit a catastrophic mistake that jeopardizes the continual rule of the Party for his potential enemies within the Party to rise up against him.” A simultaneous loss in Hong Kong and in a trade war to the United States may very well meet that criterion.
The political rebuke to China from what is in essence a province of China in name only may very well be the foreshock that fissures China and shakes President Xi’s hold on power.
Tyler Grant is a lawyer in New York, published poet, and Washington Examiner contributor.
