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How to keep up the fight for Hong Kong? Be as decentralised as possible.(Victoria Tin-bor Hui)

蘋果日報 2020/06/02 13:00


“Hong Kong’s protest movement is in crisis,” reads a New York Times headline . The police have made it too risky to protest on the streets. The Beijing-imposed national security law will further criminalize dissent. What could Hong Kong people do now to keep up the struggle?

Hong Kong people have called on the world to “catch Hong Kong as we fall .” The U.S. unprecedentedly decertified Hong Kong’s autonomous status and is taking steps to impose sanctions on Hong Kong and Beijing officials. The U.K. is offering a path to citizenship for holders of the British Nationals (Overseas) passport.

Yet, it will take time to iron out the details for all these actions, meaning that it will take even longer to make an impact.

In the meantime, Hong Kong people confront police brutality every day. The scene of the police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd in Minnesota has repeatedly happened on the streets of Hong Kong. The not-at-all independent Independent Police Complaints Council (IPCC) recently issued a report to exonerate police abuses committed last year. It suggested that police officers will likely escalate violence against protestors with complete impunity.

While the U.S. government is looking to impose sanctions on officials, words from Congressional staff suggested that police officers are not yet on the agenda.

What, then, could Hong Kong people do when the police refuse to issue “no objection” permits for demonstrations on June 4, June 9, June 12, June 16, July 1, July 21, August 31 and more? And what to do when police make mass arrests of daring protesters? If protests are too risky, do Hong Kong people have no choice but to give up?

The political science literature on protests suggests that demonstrations and marches are always the most vulnerable to police brutality, even bloodbaths. Look at what happened at the Tiananmen Square and Tahir Square, as well as in Hong Kong.

When fighting against high-capacity repressive regimes, of which the Hong Kong police is an example, the best strategy is to take decentralised methods.

Hong Kong people have in fact been taking various decentralised tactics. The challenge is to come up with more ways and to integrate them into daily lives .

When the Hong Kong government uses the coronavirus to impose a social gathering ban, Hongkongers should particularly adopt decentralised “stay-at-home ” tactics.
The annual candle light vigil on June 4 is denied a “no objection” permit from the police. Organisers of the Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China is calling on supporters to light a candle no matter where they are on June 4. This is a prime example of a decentralised protest method that is more resilient in the face of police repression.

Another example is when Hong Kong people chanted protest slogans at 10pm last fall.

The “yellow economic circle” is a form of decentralised consumer boycott. This method has been proven effective in other cases such as one that was as repressive as apartheid-era South Africa .

Labor strikes such as the one by medical workers in early February could impose costs on the regime by paralysing essential functions.

The Liaison Office labeled the “yellow economic circle” and labor strikes as “political virus.” The new national security law might as well criminalise unionisation and labor strikes.

The answer is to keep protest actions as decentralised as possible. So far, whenever Hong Kong people call for a general strike, they demonstrate at various concentrated locations. When medical workers launched a labor strike, they also gathered for a concentrated protest.

Protestors have been focusing too much on the strength of numbers. Indeed, there is also strength in the reach and depth of diversified and dispersed methods. From now on, all the strikes should stay decentralised.

There will be additional risk for workers who go on strike. Even if they only stay at home, they might still be subjected to dismissal. That was what happened to Cathay Pacific employees last year, and what was used to threaten medical workers this year. Another solution is to launch work slowdown, a method that Denmark effectively deployed even under Nazi occupation.

Most of all, such methods could allow protesters to remain nonviolent . The political science literature concludes that violence could compel changes in weak states, but is absolutely suicidal against a high-capacity regime with the will and ability to impose overwhelming repression like Beijing. I have argued elsewhere that Beijing fomented the violent turn as a trap because it is more fearful of a “color revolution” than firebombs.

In the U.S. , government officials, members of Congress, staffers and non-governmental organisations have all voiced concerns about the throwing of bricks and Molotov cocktails. If Hong Kong wants the world to take strong actions to “catch us as we fall,” we have to stand up tall.

(Victoria Tin-bor Hui is an Associate Professor in Political Science at the University of Notre Dame. She has recently written “China’s new national security law for Hong Kong will erode Hong Kong’s autonomy,” “Today’s Macau, Tomorrow’s Hong Kong”? What Future for “One Country, Two Systems”?,’ “Beijing’s Hard and Soft Repression in Hong Kong,” “Beijing’s All-Out Crackdown on the Anti-Extradition Protests.”
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