China’s National People’s Congress reviewed the draft of the new “electoral law” for Hong Kong the other day. As the new law will impose even more restrictions on future elections in Hong Kong, it is considered a retrograde step for Hong Kong’s democracy. But in fact, China has never had an intention to promote and implement democracy in Hong Kong, so its latest move can be said to be inevitable.

There is absolutely no incentive for China to implement democracy in Hong Kong. First, for so many years, a huge proportion of Chinese people (no matter whether they are members of the social elite or ordinary people) believe that the prosperity and development of Hong Kong have had nothing to do with whether there is democracy or not. They even regard democracy as more of a hindrance than a help. Let us reserve judgment on the accuracy of such thinking, but we cannot deny that such thinking cannot be ignored. I went to university amidst the democratization of Taiwan in the 1990s. Back then, all of my Hong Kong students sneered at the change, thinking that the full election of the Legislative Yuan, the direct election of the President, and all kinds of transitional justice were all much ado about nothing. Those things were of no practical value to people’s bread and butter, they thought. If even Hong Kong people living in an open society thought this way, there is no reason why today’s CCP leaders do not think otherwise.

Second, the pandemic has greatly increased Chinese leaders’ confidence in their own system, in comparison with which an air transportation hub or a financial center has, in the eyes of Chinese leaders, become much less significant thanks to the shrinkage in tangible interactions. More importantly, China is using the pandemic to explore a new model that can survive and exert influence in the international arena. Back in the eras of Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, China relied on opening up and the US’s expectations of and support for China’s reform and opening up as the driving force for its development and growth. The new model, in contrast, is more about relying on China’s different kinds of its own soft and hard power when it actively strives for an international position. Whichever area, where its quality falls short, is made up for by quantity.

To put it simply, if the international community were an exclusive club high on a high mountain, China’s previous practice had been about wangling an invitation through its relationship with the president of the club. Now it would rather climb the mountain by itself, bribe the concierge or simply break-in. The best example is the vaccine war.

Third, it is the indifference of neighboring countries. There are two reasons for such indifference. The first reason is that while China’s failure to abide by the “One Country, Two Systems” promise is a fact, it is truly doubtful whether such a failure to keep a promise will be considered by most countries as the norm for their interactions with China, so much so that they feel necessary to intervene in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong issue is not comparable to any other internal and external issues of China, so there is not the concern that what happened in Hong Kong today might happen somewhere else tomorrow.

Western countries were supportive of the democratization of Eastern Europe. That was because once those countries were democratized, it would not be so easy again for the Soviet Union to use them as proxies for their confrontation with the West. This would be beneficial to the entire strategic interests of NATO. In other words, the US’s and the West’s support for the democratization of Eastern Europe was not only moral, but also strategical. But Hong Kong does not have such a geopolitical role to play. Even if China had maintained its Hong Kong policy before 2019 and even allowed the direct election of its Chief Executive, it would not mean that it would not continue its “wolf warrior” diplomacy and military expansion internationally.

The second reason is that Hong Kong’s democratization does not mean China’s democratization. Even China’s rightists who want China’s peaceful transition are unlikely to think that Hong Kong’s democratization will lead to the democratization of China as a whole. What was so smart about Deng Xiaoping was his use of “One Country, Two Systems” as an internal firewall for China. The more completely the “Two Systems” in “One Country, Two Systems” is implemented, the less likely for Hong Kong’s systems to influence (or be able to influence) China.

Therefore, international support for Hong Kong now is entirely based on moral values such as freedom and human rights rather than the strategic value concerning a contest between powers. How strong can such support be? We can make our own judgments.

Fourth, China has found that it is difficult to take advantage of Hong Kong’s democracy. Taiwan’s democracy is more complete than Hong Kong’s, but it is a question that few people have considered whether China believes that Taiwan’s democracy can serve its political goals better than Hong Kong’s. If democracy can be used for its own purposes, then the incentive to destroy it will be reduced, and vice versa. Although the goal achieved in a democratic way is slow, there may be fewer consequences but more legitimacy for things such as unification.

China has always conducted “cognitive wars” in Chinese societies. Hong Kong is under Chinese rule, but Taiwan is not yet. However, as far as the effectiveness of cognitive wars is concerned, which is the place where China can influence what people think, what agendas are set and what political figures pursue the most efficiently? I am afraid that future history books will give us some shocking answers.

Therefore, if anyone wants to promote the democratization of Hong Kong in the future, he or she must first wait for such democratization to show a strategic value in international politics. Before that, it may be necessary to explain the positive benefits of democracy for economic and social development. While that might not suffice to change the thinking of Chinese leaders for quite some time, the forging of such a consensus can lay the foundations for change. Once an opportunity arises, it will be possible to identify the direction for change and find the momentum. If the international strategic situation makes it impossible for the CCP to loosen its grip on Hong Kong (because there is a consensus that “democracy is good”), true democracy will be established very swiftly.

(Chang Kuo-cheng, Professor of General Education Center of Taipei Medical University and member of the Advisory Committee of Taiwan Think Tank)

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