The Asianist

Todd Crowell at Asia Cable writes:

Public approval for the democratic members is low at the moment. The government of Donald Tsang is very popular, unlike the previous administration. Beijing seems to be making peace offerings to the democrats as shown by the get-together in Guangzhou earlier this month. Another mass demonstration being bruited for early December might prove embarrassingly sparse.

The public may look on opposition as being simply stubborn obstructionism in pursuit of a utopian cause. The baby thaw with Beijing, which they are so eager to nurture, would freeze again. In the end the democrats are in a corner and may not have many good options other than to accept the proposals and try for some compromises.

For the moment, many and perhaps most Hong Kong people demand a completely universal suffrage. Yet there is a real danger that the public sentiment in Hong Kong may slide toward a more sinister version of Singapore where most people would be content so long as trains run on time and the economy hums along.

Of course, the desire for democracy can be bought off with prosperity for only so long, e.g. South Korea and Taiwan). But South Korea and Taiwan had powerful external influences for pro-democracy movements from other governments, most notably the United States.

Unfortunately, because of China's increasingly economic juggernaut status, many governments are "going along to get along" with China's, and by extension, Hong Kong's political repression. And my country, the US, is to some extent guilty of that too.

Some technophiles thought that the Internet might derail China's oppression, but the big technology-as-liberator has turned out to be a decidedly mixed bag where China is concerned:

On one hand, the internet has been a tremendously empowering and liberating force for many Chinese - economically and culturally. On the other hand, a business and regulatroy model is emerging that enables censorship to work in a way that is actually tolerable for most Chinese internet users (except for political dissidents who are - to put it mildly - out of luck). As a result, China's extensive system of censorship and internet controls doesn't hold businesses back when it comes to innovating and making money from products and services that enable users to create media (blogs, posdcasts, etc.). We are also looking at a future in which soft censorship will be "baked" into a new generation of software and online services coming out of China. And these products and services will prove very attractive not just for the Chinese government but for many other governments - including some that call themselves democratic.