Analysis of a "Chairman Rabbit" in Mainland China

[cp] Disgraceful alliance - a wonderful combination of different camps in the Hong Kong opposition movement

Rabbit Chairman 20190810

The Hong Kong movement since June 2019 is undoubtedly a major event in the Chinese community. It is destined to go down in history and affect the future of the Chinese world. It is a large-scale political and social movement with complex causes, numerous participants, and reflections of multiple social demands. Although its output is single (several "demands"), behind it is a very complex and completely different variety of demands - from the people's livelihood political and economic demands (Marxists and left-wing intellectuals are very accustomed to using this perspective analysis), to general mainstream Western values (focusing on Hong Kong's relative autonomy and "two systems" based on Western democracy), to identity politics (identity politics) that can directly impress Hong Kong natives from all walks of life, covering local nativism, traditional Chinese localism (Cantonese/Cantonese) and xenophobia.

This movement has several important features,

One is that in the discourse of protest, there is a systematic lack of people's livelihood politics. To put it bluntly, economic issues are not mentioned. I have repeatedly written from the author on Weibo, and try to give reasons, for example:

1) The political demands of a high degree of autonomy and a high degree of two systems in wider social groups (in layman's terms, people of all walks of life are concerned about the amendment, but not people of all walks of life are concerned about people's livelihood and politics);

2) Political value belongs to the grand narrative, which is more than enough to provide some kind of "enhancing dimension" to the movement. Politics of people's livelihood belongs to eating and drinking, and it is economic interests. Even if it is a driving factor, it can be considered vulgar and market-oriented, and I don't want to be mentioned. In the traditional Chinese cultural system, it is deeply rooted that "if you have enough food and clothing, you will know etiquette, and if you have enough food and clothing, you will know honor and disgrace". Elevating political interests beyond economic interests seems higher. Here are the details that can be observed: All those who do not support the movement, especially the business elites - are regarded as "taking money from the mainland" - they oppose the movement not because of the inherent problems of the movement itself, but because of the economic Benefit. This is to question and belittle the inherent political values, orientations and demands of the establishment;

3) Idealistic view that "everything is a system problem", that is, if the system problem is solved, all other problems can be easily solved. In other words, the panacea for all problems is Western democracy. We have seen that all Western countries have profound socio-economic problems, and many have fallen into a trap that is difficult to solve. These countries are already entering a new stage, that is, the rise of populism, questioning the divided parliamentary politics and the white left’s control of mainstream political discourse, hoping to return to authoritarianism and identity politics. In other words, they turned back in the opposite direction, from the opposite side. But in Hong Kong, since the dual universal suffrage has not been achieved, all problems can be attributed very cheaply to the lack of dual universal suffrage. This analogy is that you can see some people in China. When you talk to him about any problem, his reaction is: "In the final analysis, this is a system problem." In other words, as long as Hong Kong does not carry out dual universal suffrage, this problem cannot be solved, because Someone will always attribute the problem to the system, and their claim cannot be disproved. I personally think that, first, institutional problems are not the solution. If institutional problems were the solution, then there would be no yellow vest movement in France. Second, according to the logic of Western democracy, the establishment of such a system is not teleological, not instrumental, not to solve a specific problem, but because such a system has intrinsic value. Therefore, even if authoritarianism can bring better results, they will still advocate Western democracy. Western democracy is procedural justice, not result-oriented. This is a fundamental principle. I think most of the general participants in Hong Kong do not understand this principle;

4) The grand narrative can cover up some more vulgar political interests and appeals, such as regional exclusivity, racism, and so on. In the mainstream discourse system of Western elites, this kind of political interest is "low-level" and dangerous. Often associated with ignorance, narrow-mindedness, and extremism. I think this is also the main reason why it is impossible for Hong Kong intellectuals to recognize identity politics;

5) Grand narratives ("democracy") are more likely to gain the attention of Western elites, which can be used to gain public opinion, political and material support resources.

The second characteristic of the Hong Kong movement is that it includes various forces that are completely irreconcilable in the Western political discourse system, and it is a strange reconciliation of various incompatible political ideas.

These include: academic liberal intellectuals (left wing), small professional intellectuals (centrist), young people of mixed class and education (identity politics/right wing)

The first force is academic liberal intellectuals. Considering the educational background and experience of these academics, their political interests should be close to Western mainstream liberalism (liberalism), which is similar to the "white left" we talk about today. For example, their values should be, like Obama and dislike Trump; recognize homosexuality and same-sex marriage; sympathize with minorities and disadvantaged groups; oppose racism and any narrow nativism and communitarianism. The specifics will not be expanded. To put it simply, if we are discussing an incident that happened in the United States, then the position of these Hong Kong intellectuals should be closer to the mainstream liberal in the United States. If given their choice to watch British media, they should watch the Guardian and the BBC.

The second force is well-educated professionals (including the media, the legal profession, doctors, teachers, religious circles, grassroots civil servants, etc.). In the ivory tower, academic intellectuals can provide certain spiritual guidance, but they may not necessarily become their spiritual leaders. In my opinion, small intellectuals pursue some liberal political theories on the one hand, but they also sympathize with identity politics on the other hand. To put it bluntly, there are few Chinese societies around the world, even the mainstream Chinese societies in the United States and Europe, that are not affected by identity bias. In one sentence, everyone understands: If you want to be like the white left, you must not discriminate against blacks, people of color, or Muslims. You should not construct any gaps and sequences between advanced civilizations and low civilizations. I rarely see political correctness and self-discipline at the level of "white leftists" in Chinese society. Therefore, most small intellectuals only agree with Western democracy on individual issues, such as relative freedom of speech, participation in politics, and so on. But there are many more possible issues they don't care about. Things like social justice, empowering disadvantaged groups and minorities. It is understandable why they care much more about Hong Kong's autonomy than about the well-being of minorities (such as Indians and Pakistanis) and disadvantaged groups (the poor living in "cages") in Hong Kong.

The third force is the Hong Kong youth who are on the front line. What they do is basically street politics, and it's violent. Nowhere is their vulgar, hooligan political agenda more apparent than on the Linkedin forums.

Of course, some of them have an orientation of academic liberal intellectuals and small intellectuals, but most of them—I believe they are an important part of the mass of black demonstrators—are driven by naive identity politics. Not only do they have low political literacy, I think there are problems with basic human and moral literacy, and there are obvious problems in the construction of values. Talk about how hard the previous generation in Hong Kong worked hard to create Hong Kong. Now it seems that one reaction is: Have you never had time to educate children?

These youth:

1) Their understanding of the concepts and principles of the rule of law, democracy, and freedom under the Western system is extremely shallow. Apart from shouting these beautiful words and thinking that they are born with the genes of these values, they know very little about these principles.

2) They clearly and unabashedly advocate identity politics (calling the mainland as "China" and the people in the mainland as "China people"; they have a strong nativism (including Cantonese culture); details), even racism, etc.). Their expression is ubiquitous, widespread among young people, and filled with the "Lian Deng" forums they use for internal communication. So I recently pointed out that their benchmark in Europe and the United States is the neo-Nazi.

3) Their behavior in the demonstrations is no different from the youth radical movements in the extreme age of modern human beings. They are all reflected in ignoring the rights of others, ignoring public order, destructive and impulsive, and ready to use what they understand as "public "Righteousness" kidnaps other people in society, and extraordinary means can be used to achieve their goals. Their actions not only deviate from traditional culture and the Western democracy they advocate, but are basically anti-modern civilization and anti-humanity. They are the enemies of mankind to build a beautiful homeland and a harmonious society.

Obviously, in any mature Western society that Hong Kong envisions, the above political and social forces cannot be aggregated. American mainstream academic liberals and alt-Right, extreme right/neo-Nazi/KKK party gathered to promote a political movement? My goodness. The Arabian Nights is completely impossible. What could be more insulting and damaging to academic liberals, and tarnishing their feathers, than this? They inherently resist and genuinely despise right-wing identity politics. In fact, they also distance themselves from any radical street politics and anarchism (including antifa on the left).

But we see that in Hong Kong, all kinds of people gather together. Exclusion and racism, political demands of Western democracy, rational violence and harmony are strangely mixed together, as if all values are integrated and dialectically unified. They also put forward such strange slogans as "don't cut seats" and "all come together". This kind of slogan is not speculative, not critical, not pursuing inherent value, not talking about ideological principles, but talking about gangs and rivers and lakes. I suspect that underground associations and triads with a little bit of discipline will be so unprincipled and "not cut seats," and will also expel bad elements who violate organizational principles. .

Therefore, the aggregation of different types of forces in Hong Kong is a very peculiar one. If there is no common opposite, then their split in the long run is inevitable. The reason why they can be connected temporarily is that they believe that they are facing a bigger common opponent at the same time, that is, "one country" in "one country, two systems".

For the first type of power, they believe that the strengthening of a country will erode the autonomy and core values they respect.

As for the third force, they see it as an invasion of their community and their homeland.

For the second force, of course, it has both.

It is not difficult to find that for the third force, that is, young people who have a relatively superficial understanding of Western democracy, they can integrate grand narratives such as Western democracy into their rural identity-as long as they construct such a binary opposition: Hong Kong = freedom; the mainland = imprisonment; Hong Kong equals civilization; the mainland equals barbarism; the rule of law in Hong Kong; the mainland equals no rule. Hong Kong and other advanced, the mainland is equal to backward. and so on. They can internalize and integrate the grand political narrative pursued by the first type of people into their simple identification with Hong Kong.

Therefore, Hong Kong people must be civilized people. Civilization is part of Hong Kong. To resist the influence of the mainland is to defend civilization and resist barbarism.

In this way, left-wing politics and right-wing politics have become close friends and merged, and they both point to an imaginary enemy—mainland China.

This is their political alliance.

Why such a political alliance? It is nothing more than "the enemy of the enemy is my friend"; "unity with all that can be united", "hold together for warmth"; "united front". It's nothing more than rivers and lakes, gangs, and unions. These are the values of traditional society. They can find more resonance from Japanese gangster movies. As for the intellectuals of the Hong Kong Academy, in order to achieve the goals of the political movement, they can undermine their own principles and accept the unholy alliance (unholy alliance), they (especially intellectuals) refuse to self-criticize the movement in order to maintain Movement for solidarity. Abandoning basic principles for the purpose is a kind of unscrupulous means.

Of course, there is another possibility, and I think it is also a very big possibility, that is, in a small place like Hong Kong, surrounded by a huge potential "external force" (mainland China), the authorities are fascinated, and they simply cannot recognize each other . All kinds of forces do not recognize each other, and mistake each other for the same kind of people. That's not bad, it's stupid. I think it's also possible that they're stupid.

Here are some of my observations about the Hong Kong movement.

Wrote here today. Finally, the Hong Kong movement is a rare large-scale movement, and there are many things worth analyzing and thinking about. This is why this Weibo took the time to cover in-depth. [/cp]