Letters | Us versus them: Hong Kong’s protests are fuelled by the same rage as the Trump presidency and Brexit

The Hong Kong protests are about neither the extradition bill nor democracy. Rather, they are against China, driven by resentment of people from the mainland. In their antipathy towards “outsiders”, the protests are not unlike populist movements elsewhere

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Protesters march through Central on August 31 with a banner on which the stars of the Chinese flag have been rearranged into a Nazi swastika. Photo: AFP

Published: 7:10am, 19 Sep 2019Updated: 7:10am, 19 Sep 2019

The current protests in Hong Kong are not about an extradition treaty. Any lawyer would agree that with a proper protocol in place, an extradition treaty is crucial to the maintenance of international law and order. Extradition is not the same as “extraordinary rendition operations” that the United States itself has carried out.

The current protests are also not about democracy. Any student of politics and history will recognise very few protests in history have truly been about such highbrow concerns as democracy. Rather, revolutions are most often the most pronounced symptom of the underlying disease of social inequality.

As a former Australian expatriate in Hong Kong, I lived in a glass bubble: I had a harbour-view flat, frequented the city’s glittering spectrum of restaurants and bars, and spent weekends hiking, cruising or flying across the region. Yet, I know many young locals struggle to seek education and employment, and thousands of elderly Hongkongers end their days in what are known as “coffin homes”. The current protests are, in part, a call for more responsive government – a government that can recognise and address the prevalent social inequality. Any government, democratic or otherwise, has the ability to respond.

The tragedy is that the current protests are fundamentally protests against China, fuelled by Hong Kong’s inherent (and ironic) hatred of China, a hatred borne of both fear and envy, and whipped into a wildfire by the international media that does not want to see, nor understand, the root cause.

Of all the places I have lived in as an international lawyer, never have I ever felt less Chinese than when I lived in Hong Kong. If I spoke Mandarin to a waiter, bank teller, sales assistant, or even my own secretary at work, the reception was glacial at best, hostile at worst. I will never forget the nights I was left stranded when I attempted to hail a taxi in Mandarin.

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