As violence erupted across Bangkok last weekend, commentators in Hong Kong have wasted no time in comparing the volatile situation there to the, let’s say, simmering situation here. There are obvious similarities: at its core, the conflict is mainly between the poor underclass (“the Red Shirts”) who lack a say in the government, and the rich business people who wield the actual power—a.k.a., the “Hong Kong model.”
Tired of being pushed around and shut out, the Red Shirts are not afraid of using violence to make their point—many have died over the past weekend in violent showdowns with the military. Here, we have... posters with the word “revolution” on them. We also have “referendums,” which is actually a by-election for protest seats in a legislature that is engineered to rubber-stamp government proposals regardless of who is elected by the people. But could it go further than that? A recent much-talked about poll from the Chinese University seems to think so, which found that 25.9 percent of people think that the local government will only respond to “radical” or “extreme” actions. The DAB/Communist Party/Central Policy Unit have gone into conniptions over the poll, which usually means it’s pretty frivolous.
In our 20 years of watching the Hong Kong political scene, we have a pretty good idea of how a “Red Shirt” revolution could potentially play out here....
• The League of Social Democrats organizes a campaign to promote democracy and government accountability, giving everyone red shirts with the slogan “Rise up!”
• The government and its supporters launch an extensive media blitz calling the slogan “Rise Up!” revolutionary, subversive, slanderous, scandalous, seditious, splittist, mendacious, outrageous, fallacious, and a little salacious; and then explains red is also too vivid, it invokes “blood,” it hurts the rods and cones of patriots, etc.
• Donald Tsang accidentally shows up to Guangdong integration meeting in red bowtie, sparking endless rounds of analysis of what side he is truly playing. Confusing the issue, he toasts cadres with white wine.