Universal suffrage is now out of question
- If there is no silent majority, there is also no realistic scenario under which Beijing would negotiate a viable electoral reform with the local opposition
So, there is no silent majority. At most, there is a substantial silent minority. Since last month’s landslide victory by the pan-democrats in the district council elections, local activists and foreign pundits have been busy outdoing each other in ridiculing how out of touch Beijing and its allies in Hong Kong have been.
No doubt it feels good proving them wrong. But it doesn’t augur well for political reform or universal suffrage. Once the central government has learned the error of its ways, it would kill any chance of reform. Politically, Hong Kong people fighting for democracy are actually in a worse position than they were in 2014, when Beijing was at least willing to entertain the possibility of “one person, one vote”.
Unfortunately, most people today think Hong Kong is better positioned because they have the illusion of numbers. Just look at the crowds at a protest march on Sunday and the numbers at the district polls!
However, without a silent majority, a key operative assumption of the Hong Kong and central governments goes out the window, namely, that Hong Kong people are practical or pragmatic.
In fact, this has been an argument made by the pan-democrats in the past two decades: Beijing should trust Hong Kong people in not going against the rest of China once they have been granted “genuine” democracy.