China’s Selective Lessons from Deng Xiaoping for Hong Kong
Beijing skips over a more expansive definition of patriots as it cites the late paramount leader on the need to run the city based on love of country. It’s an ominous sign for democracy.
Wax figures of Deng and former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher negotiating over Hong Kong.
Photographer: Bloomberg/BloombergThe noose around Hong Kong is about to get tighter. President Xi Jinping said in January that “patriots” must always govern the former British colony, leaning on the authority of late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping to justify Beijing’s crackdown on the city’s pro-democracy movement. In recent days, state media, officials and academics have taken up Xi’s cry, suggesting the country’s national legislature will move ahead with plans to narrow the scope for political participation at its annual meeting next month.
It’s a selective reading of Deng, the architect of the “one country, two systems” formula under which Hong Kong returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. “It must be required that patriots form the main body of administrators, that is, of the future government of the Hong Kong special region,” Deng said in 1984. He gave his definition of who would qualify: “What is a patriot? A patriot is one who respects the Chinese nation, sincerely supports the motherland's resumption of sovereignty over Hong Kong and wishes not to impair Hong Kong’s prosperity and stability.”