Within the last week, Hong Kong has been the site of more than a few large protests, all of which numbered to the high hundreds of thousands at the very least. These protests are to ‘protest’ the introduction of a bill, which is implemented would allow for Hong Kong citizens and non-citizens to be extradited to China for a multitude of reasons. Many in Hong Kong fear this bill is an attempt to stifle any though of independence from China in Hong Kong and bring Hong Kong into the Chinese fold finally. However, these protests have shown staunch resistance against the perceived threat and it may have China shaking, along with a few other international events.
Hong Kong is no stranger to protests against possible Chinese incursion against their sense of independence. Fiercely protective of their style of life and not wanting to become ‘just another Chinese city’, these protests are a sense of pride for those in Hong Kong. However, these new protests come at an auspicious time for the Chinese and could certainly represent a shift in attitude internally and externally. One of the prominent differences to that of older protests is the situation with the Uyghur’s of Western China. With amount of international publicity that these protests are getting, it is safe to say that China will end up under far more scurtiny than it would’ve before, atleast for a little while. This could flare up media attention to the systematic capture of the Uyghur people’s and bring the plight to the forefront of Western Attention. Beyond this, much probably wouldn’t change much for China, as Western attention, no matter how negative generally does not have much of an affect on the Chinese government and what they do.
However, the other factor in international relations could provide for a far greater problem for the Chinese. That factor is Donald Trump, who, while currently focused in the Middle East and Iran could very well shift attention to the Chinese. The continued trade war between the countries has brought a lack of any good economic upturns for either, but China has been feeling the brunt of economic damage. Should Donald Trump and the US refocus to China and wish to stand for the Hong Kong protests, it could mean China has to falter underneath mounting economic pressure and that would nearly destroy the reputation Bejing has built for the last few decades of China being unable to be moved by ‘Westerners’. A US supported win in Hong Kong would see many nations such as those in the South Chinese sea and South-East Asia becoming emboldened to take China on, on pressing matters where they normally see no chance of winning. This would be a complete disaster for the Chinese foreign policy, which has built itself on China’s fearsome reputation. However, America is in the progress of attempting to extradite its own dissident, in the form of Julian Assange, and as such backing Hong Kong’s protests against an extradition bill could be seen as extremly hypocritical and weaken America’s own standing on the world stage. Should America join Hong Kong, it would certainly weaken China but could also very well weaken the USA as well.
On One hand, this could very well be another protest by those in Hong Kong, one in the line of many which show a thwarting of Bejing’s plans for the most part. However, should the media and the US take more interest, these localized protests could see the downfall of the reputation Chinese foreign policy has built itself up on and as such, the failure of Chinese interests in Asia, atleast for the short while. While it is improbable such things come to pass, stranger things have occurred and with Donald Trump at the helm of the USA, backed by Warhawks Tusk and Bolton, anything could happen.
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