“The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.” – Princess Leia Organa
When Carrie Fisher first spoke those words (sometime during filming), the Chinese Communist Party was in utter turmoil as Mao Zedong’s life ebbed from him. It took two years (long after the film had exited theatres) for things to settle down in Zhongnanhai (for the uninitiated, that’s Beijing’s Kremlin). So one can understand that no one in the CCP higher ranks might have caught on. The regime’s utter tone-deafness regarding the will of the people in Hong Kong and Taiwan are clear evidence of that.
In the city that is already under CCP control, protesters have demanded for months that the leadership honor its promise of an open and free election for Chief Executive (the title for Mayor in that city). Of course, the CCP – which has never won a free election in the city (and on occasion even suffers losses in its semi-rigged “functional constituency” elections for city council) – refuses to budge from its convoluted system in which it picks the electors…and thus the elected. The standoff lasted most of the autumn, but the regime is resolving it in their usual way – with police and hired goons (CBS).
This is the sort of thing that is supposed to undermine and weaken the regime over time. Of course, the CCP has been adept at delaying the inevitable, especially in urban areas where relative prosperity has becalmed some of the population (the impoverished and seething rural hinterland is another matter entirely). However, in this case, the effect on the regime’s goals became evident before the police had finished arresting everyone in Hong Kong – it just happened across the Taiwan Straits.
While the police were clearing out protesters and Zhongnanhai was loudly butchering the phrase “rule of law,” voters in the island democracy – which the CCP still insists is part of their empire despite having never set foot there – went to the polls in local elections. The result was such a dramatic shock that even Legacy Media noticed it, sort of (CNN). The governing Kuomintang Party – formerly the CCP’s greatest enemy and now a cozy collaborator – was badly thumped by an anti-Communist coalition led by the nominally pro-Taiwan-independence Democratic Progressives (full disclosure: the DPP nominee for Taiwan President has won my endorsement for each of the last four elections on the island democracy). One of the biggest factors in the KMT’s defeat was its close ties to Zhongnanhai. While the next presidential election is over a year away (early 2016), the DPP is now the favorite to retake the post. Suffice to say, the CCP is not happy.
Yet, from this corner, it’s clear that the regime’s leaders did it to themselves. The CCP’s arrogant refusal to allow the people of Hong Kong to choose their own leader sent a powerful signal to Taiwan’s voters that “one country, two systems” is anything but. The Taiwanese only recently acquired democracy (the first free election for President was less than 20 years ago), and they’re not about to give it up.
One can expect wailing and gnashing of teeth in Washington, where an Administration bedazzled by diplomacy and an opposition clouded by pre-Tiananmen memories of Deng Xiaoping still tell themselves and each other the fairy tale that Zhongnanhai is full of “reformers” that can make deals. Taiwan’s reassertion of itself will be seen as pesky irritant to that. In fact, it is something much bigger: a reminder that such illusions can be dangerous to sovereign democracies…there and here.
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