Xi stance builds Chinese immunity to HK contagion

Xi Jinping, China's president, has sat out the protests in Hong Kong as he has those elsewhere on his turf: silently but with conviction that Beijing's hardline policies will prevail.

Such inaction is in keeping with the Communist party's practice of leaving local leaders to sort out their own problems - even when they arose because of policy decisions taken in Beijing - and refusing to admit any mistakes.

"They didn't self-question 25 years ago. Do you think they will do it now? They aren't going to budge," says Bao Pu, a Hong Kong-based publisher and son of the highest official jailed after the Communist party crushed democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

More than a week of protests against what many are dubbing "sham democracy" have paralysed central Hong Kong and catapulted the former British colony onto TV screens and front pages across the world (apart, that is, from China, where many images have been blocked).

Beijing's attempts to wield tighter control have stiffened local resistance elsewhere: demonstrations in many Asian cities in support of the Hong Kong protesters can also be read as a sign of unease over China's growing power.

Bloody clashes are increasingly frequent in the restless frontier region of Xinjiang, accompanying a crackdown on religious observance and ethnic activism, while last month a young man in Gansu province became the 133rd Tibetan to set himself on fire in gruesome protest against Chinese policies in their homeland. Beijing has responded by further tightening the screws.

This attitude - towards prosperous Chinese Hong Kong as well as ethnic minorities along its impoverished frontiers - predates Mr Xi, who took the top job in the Communist party two years ago.

But the crackdown on political opponents and dissenting views under Mr Xi make it unlikely that anyone in China will openly question whether Beijing's hardline policies are working.

Because Mr Xi is still consolidating power through his anti-corruption campaign, crises such as the protests in Hong Kong "can only reinforce the need to centralise power under a strongman", says Xiao Qiang, who studies Chinese online censorship at the University of California Berkeley.

Many outspoken members of Chinese civil society have been arrested or otherwise intimidated since Mr Xi came to power, neutralising potential criticism of any policy decisions.

Any expressions of solidarity towards Hong Kong's protesters from within mainland China are nipped in the bud. Several artists living on the outskirts of Beijing who attempted a sympathy protest on Friday were quickly detained.

"The Chinese government won't allow the protests to have a wider effect like the Jasmine Revolution," says Wu Qiang, a political-science professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, in a reference to the Tunisian revolution in 2011 that inspired the Arab spring. Beijing quashed any attempt at similar protests in China.

Most mainland news of the Hong Kong protests has been devoted to the traffic snarls and business lost. Mainlanders who are aware something bigger is going on privately express annoyance that Hong Kongers are not more grateful to Beijing, or chalk it up to anti-mainland xenophobia.

The protests have struck a cord in Taiwan, regarded as a renegade province by China. Taiwanese activists occupied the legislative building in Taipei for nearly a month this spring to protest against a trade agreement they viewed as giving too much sway to Beijing.

That did nothing to stop Mr Xi from applying the "one country, two systems" mantra to Taiwan last month. Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou, who many in Taiwan believe already cedes too much to Beijing, promptly rejected the formula.

Other Asian neighbours have had similar qualms about China's assertiveness under Mr Xi, particularly in the South and East China Seas. But so far, in spite of the noise, Mr Xi's refusal to back down or even acknowledge the complaints has worked.

Mr Bao argues that censorship and the lack of any effective mainland opposition makes the leadership in Beijing "immune" to the Hong Kong protests. "Something else has to happen before they feel the impact."

Indeed, the party's understanding of its own history teaches that street protests only pose a threat when they are accompanied by factional infighting at the top.

State media last week aired photos of Mr Xi enjoying a concert with retired leader Jiang Zemin at his side, as if to head off any speculation of a dangerous split.

Additional reporting by Tom Mitchell in Beijing

© The Financial Times Limited 2014. All rights reserved.
FT and Financial Times are trademarks of the Financial Times Ltd.
Not to be redistributed, copied or modified in any way.
Euro2day.gr is solely responsible for providing this translation and the Financial Times Limited does not accept any liability for the accuracy or quality of the translation