Hong Kong is no longer a colony, but officials still await instructions from on high – and that’s a problem

The local government still behaves like it’s overseeing a colony but has less leverage with Beijing than leaders of mainland cities

Receiving little or no instruction from the central government has also led to many mistakes and a confused response to the protests

Reading Time:4 minutes

Published: 6:30am, 29 Oct 2019Updated: 6:39am, 29 Oct 2019

I have written a lot about the situation in Hong Kong, and have unreservedly lambasted people who are damaging transport infrastructure and businesses in the city, or attacking people who hold different views. As with any conflict, of course, there is always another side. Let’s take a look.

A major claim coming from the “protest camp” is that Hong Kong no longer has any autonomy, and that the Hong Kong government is just following instructions from Beijing. Unfortunately, I think the situation is simpler but sadder than that.

If we look at major cities in China – such as Shenzhen, Shanghai or even Guangzhou – we see the city leaders very often being tough, feisty characters who “fight their corner”. They go to bat with the central government, pushing hard for the initiatives they want to roll out in their cities.

As a special administrative region for the past 20-plus years, Hong Kong has had immense freedom to guide development and head off the crisis that has now come home to roost. That opportunity has clearly been squandered.

Recently, when 1 to 2 million people marched peacefully as a reaction against the extradition bill, the response of the Hong Kong government should have been “Oh dear, this is not going to fly. We had better retract and think about how to do this in a way that can be accepted by the community.” As we all know, that did not happen. At least, not quickly enough to avoid the societal breakdown we are now seeing.

So, how did we get here? I think the Hong Kong government was trying to second-guess what Beijing would want, and took many weeks to go through that process. When Beijing didn’t tell Hong Kong what to do, the local government finally had to make the decision locally.

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