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In May, State Department Policy Planning head Kiron Skinner described the strategic competition with China as “a fight with a really different civilization,” echoing Sam Huntington’s 1993 clash of civilizations thesis that the post-Cold War order would be defined by conflicts between the cultural West, and Islam and Confucian orders of the East.
Others have critiqued Skinner’s idea and pointed out the historical facts she got wrong. No reason to repeat those critiques here.
However, in one sense, she might be thought to be “correct” as we see events play out on the streets of Hong Kong. Except the fight is not between a Confucian culture supposedly embodied in the government of China and the citizens of a former colony of the West. Rather, the clash of civilizations is between the hard authoritarianism of the People’s Republic and the liberal governing principles that made ethnically Chinese Hong Kong unique.
Under the terms of the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984, Hong Kong was to exercise a high degree of autonomy captured by the phrase, “one country, two systems.” In addition, under the terms of the “Basic Law” to which China committed as part of the handover agreement with the UK, Hong Kongers were led to believe they would eventually have the right to elect the city’s leaders. This obviously has not come to pass and, as anyone who is familiar with the city’s inner workings knows, the squeeze from Beijing has taken its toll on key elements of the city’s civic life — the press, political parties, higher education, and the judicial system.
The Hong Kong government’s effort to pass a new law allowing individuals — citizens or foreigners — to be detained by Hong Kong police and extradited to China to stand trial for one of more than three dozen types of criminal offenses (as defined by Beijing) is only the latest decision by the PRC to turn its back on its original pledges. Nevertheless, its consequences will be far reaching, further reducing confidence in the business community that they can operate outside of the PRC’s watch and reach and, as Sophie Richardson of Human Rights Watch has noted, “irrevocably damag[ing] Hong Kong’s status as the safe harbor for people peacefully promoting human rights in China.”
When asked about events in Hong Kong, President Trump had only the most limp of responses: “I’m sure they’ll be able to work it out.” The chances of “they” being able to work things out are obviously small, and grow to virtually non-existent if the US and the UK do not make it clear that there will be a price to be paid for the PRC’s failure to stick to its commitments regarding Hong Kong. And, indeed, for the US, it is the law of the land (“United States-Hong Kong Policy Act of 1992”) that Hong Kong is given special status politically and commercially only to the extent it remains “sufficiently autonomous to justify” such treatment.
Both Republican and Democratic administrations have interpreted these words to avoid a finding that Hong Kong no longer deserves special treatment. And there is an argument that making a negative determination would not bother Beijing in the least and would only hurt the citizens of Hong Kong. But, at some point, one would think that the accelerating pace of China’s efforts to undermine the principle of “one country, two systems” is just too blatant to ignore.
If there is indeed a clash of civilizations, it’s between a culture of individual freedom and one-party tyranny. Unfortunately, and despite our own politicians’ pledges to help keep Hong Kong autonomous and support its move to democratic rule, it’s been a clash we’ve largely ignored and Hong Kongers are increasingly on the losing end of.
Update: In the face of massive protests over the weekend, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam suspended consideration of the extradition bill by the city’s assembly. Not too surprisingly, given Hong Kongers’ suspicions about the Beijing-picked executive and the PRC’s long-term plans for city, Sunday saw even larger crowds hit the streets demanding Lam step down and the proposed measure be pulled altogether. Perhaps this is what President Trump meant by “they” being “able to work it out,” but that seems unlikely. What has worked is a show of popular force by literally millions of Hong Kongers. Whether at the end of the day that force prevails against a PRC leadership that still thinks the slaughter at Tiananmen Square in 1989 was justified is open question. Certainly, the odds will be better for Hong Kongers’ if they thought the US and the rest of the democratic West were solidly behind them.
The recent protests in Hong Kong may be a clash of civilizations, but if so it is between a culture of individual freedom and one-party tyranny.
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