Letters | What Mao and Lee Kuan Yew could teach Hong Kong protesters calling for revolution
- If the words of Mao Zedong and Lee Kuan Yew don’t offer enough insights, Hong Kong’s “freedom fighters” could learn from the experience of pro-democracy protesters in Taiwan and South Korea
As Mao Zedong said, “A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.”
In today’s Hong Kong, what those who chant “fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong” are trying to pursue is an electoral system that could produce pro-democracy political leaders who can counter Beijing’s control. They also call for a holistic reform of the police force to rid it of alleged police brutality.
I still remember Lee Kuan Yew’s interview in 1992, where he pointed out that China did not want Hong Kong to be a political model but only an economic model, and if two were rolled up into one, then Hong Kong would be a challenge to its system.
Indeed, these Hong Kong protesters are on the same track as the protesters of the democracy movement in Taiwan in the 1980s. The Kuomintang authorities in 1979 launched a crackdown on the movement by arresting some of its leaders, in what is now known as the Formosa Incident. Subsequently, virtually all well-known opposition leaders were arrested and some of them were tried in a military court and were sentenced to terms ranging from 12 years to life imprisonment.