How did we get it so wrong ?

Events in Hong Kong and Ukraine have overturned all our hopes of a better and freer world

Last week marked the 25th anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong to China, but essentially it was the 2nd birthday of Beijing reneging on its international commitments by imposing direct and authoritarian rule over the former British colony. As a former resident, the last day of June and the first day of July always feel a bit heart-rending. This year with Xi Jinping putting his mark on China’s final and brutal victory over Hong Kong on the day that marked the midpoint of the fifty year ‘one country-two systems’ deal felt even more depressing. When the British departed on that rainy day twenty five years ago, former governor Chris Patten laid it out very differently:

" Now, Hong Kong people are to run Hong Kong,

that is the promise …

… and that is the unshakeable destiny "

The deal with China - codified in the Joint Declaration and Basic Law - allowed for self determination by the people of Hong Kong, even elections and a route to universal suffrage. Sovereignty, which meant foreign and military affairs, would reside with China. On the face of it things worked, but from day one the Chinese leadership undermined and influenced behind the scenes with the goal of not only discouraging any political dissent, but also slowly stamping out the Hong Kong identity. Local Cantonese language, culture, history were steadily de-emphasized for a uniform Chinese one. Even I fell for it in a way at the time by starting to learn Mandarin rather than the local Cantonese, thinking it would be more practical to do so. As time moved on since the 1997 handover the resistance to the Chinese embrace increased, but also the characters on the scene. The godfather of Hong Kong democracy, Martin Lee, never questioned Chinese sovereignty. Lee’s ultimate take was how to make things work within that challenging but unalterable framework. The newer and younger Hong Kong activists during the 2014 and especially the 2019 protests went much further by directly challenging Beijing’s sovereignty and claiming actual independence. Waiving the colonial union and even US flags was exactly the pretext the nationalist authoritarian Xi needed to bring down the hammer and settle things once and for all.

The money had not really been on a crackdown like this, but nor was it on a successful conclusion (and maybe even an extension) of the ‘one country, two systems’ model. Everyone just hoped it would work and that free markets would help spread liberal democracy into China proper.

The same view was held about the new arrangements as independent states emerged as the Soviet Union collapsed and the US and Europe carefully negotiated for Eastern Europe to become free, open, democratic and prosperous. Former Soviet republics would benefit and Russia would surely follow and succumb to a more western model with all its attendant benefits. An entire generation of politicians from Bush Sr. to Blair to Clinton to Cameron to Obama banked on and worked on the basis of an integrated world order where market economics would be embedded in stable and collaborating democracies.

It’s hard to say that the idyll began to crack at a certain point in time, but over time it became clearer that authoritarian rule and economic growth actually were quite able to cohabitate. In fact the preservation of wealth and economic success did not need the freedom and an open democratic model (something the former HK governor so often argued): it was the iron fist that ensured both stability and unique forms of crony capitalism. China and Russia perfected both while western democracies experienced some real financial and political crises and began to look inward.

It was the pandemic era of 2020-22 that broke the spell of a manageable and fixable world. When everyone started to lockdown, China completed its takeover of Hong Kong and when we came out of it Russian tanks were rolling into Ukraine. Western democracies are all deeply pre-occupied with Covid, inflation, energy conversion, populism and no longer have the spirit and capacity to fully engage with and shape a world that has now changed beyond recognition. Democracy is no longer the winning doctrine, there’s real merit and currency in brutally ignoring all the rules and push your agenda forward while enriching yourself in the process. In July 2022 Xi and Putin are winning. It is impossible to get the future right, but it is fair to ask today: how could we have got it so wrong?