A political organization named the Bauhinia Party has popped up from nowhere. Does it insinuate the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is set on replacing the local pro-CCP bloc with “Hong Kong drifters”? While it is anyone’s guess, let’s have a look at the history of abolishment of feudatories for the rise of “localism”.

Abolishment of feudatories was a policy to withdraw local powers from feudal lords by a king in order to cement his own authority in an autarchy in ancient times. Localism, which can be found everywhere all over the world, is a preference in dealing with relationships between local regions and a state towards protectionist policies for culture and population advocated by regions to safeguard their own interests. Cihai(a dictionary and encyclopedia of Standard Mandarin Chinese) published by China in 1989 states that “localism means violation of principles of democratic centralism, one-sidedly stressing local particularities, disobeying unifying policies and plans of central governments, prioritizing partial local interests over entire national interests”. But is there democracy under democratic centralism? Or is there only centralism?

The CCP established a government in 1949. The first “anti-localism campaign” was an overhaul of the CCP ruling class in Guangdong province comprised of people of Guangdong origin. In September 1949, the Central Government commissioned Ye Jianying of Guangdong origin as the chairman of the People’s Government of Guangdong, the leadership team of which included Fang Fang, who had led CCP underground activities in Guangdong and Hong Kong for a long time, Gu Dacun and Feng Baiju, CCP military leaders of Dongjiang Column of the Guangdong People’s Anti-Japanese Guerrilla Force and Qiongya Column on Hainan Island. But not until the end of the second year, CCP Central-South Bureau moved Tao Zhu and Zhao Ziyang from outside the province to Guangdong to take the helm of the region, criticizing “Guangdong party organization for being severely impure” and vowing to “oppose localism”. The local cadres’ contributions in work to help the CCP found the government and seize the power were written off at one stroke. They were even demoted, framed up and buffeted.

After the reform and opening up of China, local economic strengths were enhanced. To consolidate its authority, the Central Government couldn’t help but constrain the localist forces from expanding. Jiang Zemin moved Guangdong governor Ye Xuanping away from the province and dealt a blow to Chen Xitong, former secretary of municipal party committee of Beijing who had occupied the city for a long time; Hu Jintao removed Chen Liangyu, former secretary of municipal party committee of Shanghai who was opposed to the central-control policy, and threw him in jail. Localist forces were overhauled in the name of anti-corruption. By the same token, the large-scale anti-corruption campaign launched by Xi Jinping was to cripple localist strengths in a bid to solidify Central Government’s authority and his own power.

Since autarchy was implemented in China, the localism issue has been prevailing throughout dynasties. Though political forces founded on local interests and localism had no intention of going rebellious, they could not carry out every mandate given by the Central Government after all for the differences in the geographical environment, religious background and traditional culture. When local economic strengths were overwhelming, they would be deemed by the Central Government a threat to the regime. And reciprocally, the qualms felt by the Central Government pressed local forces to rebel against the former for self-protection.

Since China and the UK signed the Joint Declaration, I have not believed for a split second “one country, two systems” works for the reason that an autocratic regime which has a dread of localism will never put up with a region enjoying autonomy and the people enjoying democratic right. A temporary tolerance to “one country, two systems” is just a stopgap measure for its short-term incapability. Once the Central Government is confident in replacing it, the local self-governing forces will be crushed ruthlessly. And those self-conceited about their contributions to the state will have to bear the brunt. High autonomy can never materialize in a country where the state power is maximized, but only in a country where individual rights are maximized. Political theorist Russell Kirk, the author of the book Roots of American Order, was of the view that one of the principles of the American order founded on the constitution based on “We the people” is to advocate communities spontaneously coming into being while opposing to man-made collectivism. Notwithstanding Americans attaching great importance to privacy, they are known for their outstanding community spirit. US federalism holds the belief that the policy decisions that directly impact on citizens’ lives most are voluntarily made by the people residing in the community. Functions of local government organs need to and can only be brought into force by agreements reached by the citizens concerned. When political functions are driven or even taken up by the central government in the absence of local representatives, local communities are put in an extraordinarily precarious situation – the political order agreed by the ruled will be substituted with standard practice antagonistic towards freedom and human dignity.

(Lee Yee, a prominent political commentator in Hong Kong who embarked on a career of writing and subediting in 1956, has been contributing unremittingly political commentaries to the local press.)

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