The Hong Kong rebellion

It's a time of unprecedented rebellion. In Puerto Rico, a rebellion against obscenity has shot down the leader who had scandalized the homophobia that he had vulgarly expressed.

As in the rest of the world, revolutions and revolts in the Caribbean opposed oppression, tyranny and misery. But, although it is about corruption and governmental inconvenience, on the island badociated with the United States, the social epidemic that has brought down the governor was triggered by the gross badism which he showed in a group of chat.

The social rebellion that has shaken Hong Kong for more than two months is also different. Unlike all revolutions, the uprising of the Hong Kong people does not mean that everything changes, but everything stays the same.

On the other hand, though it is true that the story is full of rebellions for freedom, it is in any case a defense of freedom on the brink to be lost or a conquest of freedom that we do not have. And the novelty in Hong Kong is that the general rebellion does not consist in conquering a freedom that is currently lacking or defending a freedom that is being lost, but in struggling for the future. The freedom for which millions of people face police repression for nine weeks will be lost in nearly three decades.

It is only in 2047 that the institutions and the rights and guarantees in force will be replaced by the laws and institutions in force in the rest of China.

It turns out that that year ends the half-century of legal and institutional continuity agreed upon in the negotiations that led to the transfer of British sovereignty to that of China.

The crowds that invaded Chat Garden in the Central District, where the youth who started the protest joined the leaders of the 52 government agencies promoting a general strike, are protected by the right to demonstrate that Article 27 of the call is guaranteed. "Basic Law."

The protests began with the attempt to impose extradition legislation that Beijing could use to extend the persecution of dissidents in Hong Kong. With the youth at the helm, the protests have succeeded, on the one hand, in having the local government, chaired by Carry Lam, suspend the application of this law. And then he canceled it forever.

Why did the demonstrations continue if the law on extradition had been rejected? For at best, the victory of the demonstrators would only serve for the 28 to come. It will cease to serve when the "fundamental law" acting as a constitution ceases to be valid.

The demonstrations try not to do that. The people of Hong Kong did not live under Communist totalitarianism imposed after Mao Tse-tung's triumph over Chiang Kai-shek's nationalist authoritarianism. Nor did they suffer from the inquisitive fanaticism of the cultural revolution.

Since 2002 in Beijing, he has tried to impose an anti-subversive law, recurring protests, demanding the extension of existing rights, as was the case in 2014 with the "umbrella revolution".

No consultation

If they had been consulted on the Sovereignty Transfer Agreement, most Hong Kongers would probably have voted in favor of the continuation of the British orbit. If London did not take into account the will of the inhabitants, what it did in some of its colonies is because Margaret Thatcher simply conformed to the agreements that, in the first half of the nineteenth century, put Hong Kong under British rule.

The Nanking Treaty of 1848 and the Beijing Treaty of 1860, as well as the subsequent agreement on Kowloon and the New Territories, gave London sovereignty for a period of 99 years. At the end of this period, they had to be restored.

In the 1970s, the transfer began to be negotiated. The fact that Deng Xiaoping, a reformist leader victim of the Cultural Revolution, was in power facilitated the negotiations.

The formula "One Country, Two Systems", designed by Deng to reach both the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984 and the Sino-Portuguese Joint Declaration of 1989 (referring to Macao, which was in the hands of Portugal ) was the key to the agreement. But this pact imposed an end point for a differentiated institutionality.

Although the market economy and private capital are likely to continue, it is possible that existing freedoms, rights and guarantees will come to an end after 50 years of institutional and legal continuity.

By negotiating with Thatcher for the return of the enclave, Deng already knew that the collectivist economy of central planning had failed and would not bring prosperity or development. That is why he had decided to strengthen the opening to private capital.

Hong Kong and Macao would serve to test the functioning of capitalism under the domination of the Communist Party. But Deng imagined that the "two systems" would not be limited to these special geographical areas. Private investment would multiply throughout China.

When the stipulated 50 years are over, the current economic rules are practically no longer in danger. What will change is the case law.

This inexorable fate would be changed if China democratized, but nothing seems to threaten the one-party regime and its authoritarian system. In summary, if Li Peng was able to send tanks to Tiananmen Square to crush student demonstrations in 1989 that demanded more democracy and fewer economic reforms that harmed them, it was because Deng decided to keep economic openness closing the political openness demanded by young people. and defended the former Prime Minister Zhao Ziyang.

Most likely, in three decades, the Chinese state will remain authoritarian. For that, it was the Tiananmen mbadacre. Obtaining the protest would be to renounce the laws and imposing institutions prevailing in the rest of the country in Hong Kong.

Challenging the danger of repression like that of Tiananmen, the people of Hong Kong remain in the streets. They do not aspire to democratize China, but dream of perpetuating the rights, guarantees and freedoms with which they were born and raised.

New march and repression, hours of a historic general strike

Tens of thousands of Hong Kongers took to the streets yesterday for the ninth consecutive weekend to claim democratic reforms for the former British colony, the hours of the historic general strike tomorrow, the first since the 1960s .

The demonstration yesterday began peacefully, but resulted in excesses and repression. The Hong Kong police riot police threw tear gas at protesters in the downtown square after one group destroyed a police station, the Ansa news agency reported. .

The march began peacefully with some 120,000 people gathered for four hours in the Monh Kok district, a popular destination for shopping and the theater of pro-democracy clashes of 2014.

Protesters, mostly young, presented slogans against the police for excessive use of violence during the crackdown on demonstrations, which ended last week with 44 arrests, and called for two marches today on Hong Kong Island and Tseung Kwan Bay O.

"Monday, the strike," "Recover Hong Kong, the revolution of that time," were slogans chanted by the demonstrators, came with the premise of not confronting the police.

Most shops on Nathan Road, a commercial avenue usually frequented by tourists, were closed all day, while protesters occupied unexpected streets on the original route with no pre-established destination.

Meanwhile, a counter-march gathered thousands of people dressed in white and carrying flags of China.