Why the Hong Kong district council election results are a win for Chinese people everywhere
- What Beijing has failed to grasp is that the West doesn’t need to interfere in Hong Kong for its cultural influence to be felt. While Hong Kong’s importance to China may have waned, it will always have a special place in the world
I returned to Hong Kong in the late 1960s to help establish the Chinese University of Hong Kong. It was then that I received an invitation to return to mainland China.
In June 1972, just months after Nixon’s trip, I travelled from Hong Kong to the mainland, where I helped establish subsequent book, cultural and people-to-people exchanges between China and the US.
It was fortuitous that such a venture began in Hong Kong. The city and its people have always occupied a special place between East and West, between China and the world.
The Hong Kong of today is hardly recognisable as the one I remember from my youth. I have watched the protests unfolding over the last six months and, like many, have been struck by the youth of the protesters involved.
In defence of Hongkongers’ right to scold the chief executive
Leaders in Beijing have maligned the West for supposedly interfering in the unrest in Hong Kong. What they have thus far failed to grasp is that the West does not need to interfere for its influence to be felt. Hong Kong may be part of China, but it has also belonged to the world – including the West – for over a century.
Hongkongers show they are not afraid to stand up to Beijing’s heavy hand
The massive turnout for the election, together with the overwhelming support for pro-democracy candidates, is good news for Hong Kong, for Chinese-Americans and indeed, for Chinese everywhere. It is evident that there are Chinese people who value democracy and freedom and who will not stand aside and watch as their rights disappear.
Hongkongers show they are not afraid to stand up to Beijing’s heavy hand
While the actions of a relatively small group of protesters denouncing Xi could perhaps be easy for Beijing to dismiss, nearly 3 million voters in Hong Kong are not. They have made it abundantly clear they will not quietly acquiesce to the twilight of their established freedoms.
Although I have not called Hong Kong home for many years, I still feel compelled to offer my thoughts on recent events. Throughout the cold war and after, despite the cooling and warming and cooling again of the US-China relationship, Hong Kong has stood as an emblem of the unbreakable ties of trade and culture between China and the West.
I do not believe those days are over, so long as the people of Hong Kong continue to demonstrate their commitment to the values that have long defined it.
Chi Wang, a former head of the Chinese section of the US Library of Congress, is president of the US-China Policy Foundation