HONG KONG: NOW WITH EVEN MORE ERSATZ DEMOCRACY!
ITEM: Hong Kong has a new and improved election system that - we are assured - will result in more democracy than we’ve ever had before.
Here’s how RTHK put it on Twitter:
Which is about right.
To explain: the “reforms” were imposed on us by Beijing in response to the 2019 protests, the landslide victory of pro-Democracy candidates in the District Council elections at the end of that year, and the pro-Demo primary in 2020 that was part of their planned strategy to win a majority in LegCo for the first time in the LegCo elections in September that year.
Every single person who ran in that primary is now in jail for violating China’s national security. (No, really.)
Meanwhile, as there was a pretty good chance the pro-Demo strategy actually might have actually worked, the HK govt postponed the LegCo election for a year (citing COVID-19 as the official reason, of course), and Beijing decided our election system and our democracy in general needed fixing.
Well, they fixed it all right.
The details are here if you want them, but in the name of TL;DR, here’s an analogy:
Imagine that Congress had a total of 70 seats, only half of which (35) are directly elected by the people. The other half are elected by business sectors and special interests.
Imagine also that the POTUS (let’s say Trump, for example) is elected not by regular voters but an Electoral Committee of 1,200 electors controlled by the GOP, which gets final approval on who serves on the committee. The same committee also gets to decide who gets to run for POTUS.
That was our system until today.
Here’s the new system:
- Congress will be expanded to 90 seats, but you can only vote for 20 of them
- Of the remainder, 30 will be elected by business reps and the other 40 will be elected by the same Electoral Committee that elects the POTUS
- That committee (which is now 1,500 people, 1,000 of which are hand-picked and appointed by the GOP, the rest elected by approved pro-GOP corporations and interest groups) also gets final say on who gets to run for all 90 Congressional seats
- A new committee will vet all candidates to ensure they are “patriots”. They will be assisted by the national security police to make sure the candidates are not national security threats.
- Any candidate disqualified by the committee is subject to arrest by the national security police for violating the national security law
- Encouraging people to cast protest votes in any way shape or form (to include t-shirt slogans) is punishable by three years in prison, even though protest votes are not illegal.
So, yes. That’s our democracy now.
CAVEAT: It’s an imperfect analogy in the sense that the HK isn’t a two party system. Rather, we have a number of parties divided into two ideological camps - pro-Beijing and pro-Democracy. The CCP does not operate as a political party in HK, but from this point on, only candidates (regardless of political party) who pledge patriotic loyalty to China and the CCP can run for office - which basically means anyone approved by the CCP to run for office in HK is by default CCP-adjacent, if not literally a party member.
Naturally, Carrie Lam and whatever LegCo members are left (as most pro-Democrat politicians are either disqualified, in jail or in exile) are selling it as a delightful, major improvement that it actually makes Hong Kong more democratic, because it ensures that all voices are represented. (To explain: Beijing’s idea of “representation” is that all points of view are welcome to be represented in government, so long as only pro-Beijing voices have majority control forever - and as long as all views come with a pledge of loyalty to the CCP.)
They’re also selling this in the TV PSAs as a matter of national security with a direct link to the 2019 protests. Essentially, this involves a rewrite of history that combines two separate elements - protest violence + rowdy scenes in LegCo by pan-Democrats with a penchant for theatre - as if all of this was one big violent separatist movement funded by Western govts to create anarchy, take over the govt and overthrow Beijing.
“See? It’s either this or TOTAL VIOLENT CHAOS! Which would you rather have?”
Which of course is 100% false. But this is the same govt that arrested 53 pro-Demos for attempting to legally win a LegCo majority and tells teenagers holding up blank placards in malls that they’re violating national security. So.
BONUS TRACK: Regarding the RTHK tweet, here’s a link about how RTHK (our local public broadcaster) is being slowly but surely transformed from the best and most trusted news source in the city to a govt propaganda mill. Their social media person (at least on the English language side) is apparently keen on going down swinging.
Voted off the island,
This is dF
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