HK Yellow wins like EDSA

MOST people around the world that took notice of the recent elections in Hong Kong were surprised by the “landslide” win of the Yellow movement in Hong Kong. I call that movement Yellow because it is very similar to the Yellow movement that instigated and triumphed the 1986 “color revolution” in the Philippines. That movement installed the Western “democratic” icon, Corazon Aquino.

In the EDSA I color revolution in Manila, it was also the schools and universities that provided the shock troops that led the campaign to demonize and shake the government. Most prominent were the religious schools. The role of the US was also comparable: EDSA-1 included visits of top US politicians to the country similar to the recent visit to Hong Kong of US Sen. Ted Cruz when he berated the HK chief executive.

Prior to the EDSA I color revolution, there was also a university siege similar to HK Poly University. University of the Philippines students barricaded themselves inside the huge, multi-building compound and fought the police with “pillboxes”, an explosive the size of a cigarette pack filled with gunpowder and shrapnel that explodes on impact. Fireworks rockets made in the science labs were also used.

That University of the Philippines siege was called “The Diliman Commune”. The student activists fancied themselves as “communards” ala Paris 1871 when an insurrection against the French government occurred in the wake of France’s debacle in the Franco-German War. The pictures and videos of the Diliman Commune are very similar to the snapshots of HK Poly University.

After six months of protest triggered by public misunderstanding and opposition to an “extradition law” that had long been requested by many international legal parties, elections were held for local and district officials where the Hong Kong Yellow movement won a majority. It is important to point out, however, that the elections were not for the legislature.

Ironically, the Yellow opposition who won the majority against government candidates continue to raise the protest issue of “democracy” and do not credit the successful democratic conduct of elections by the Carrie Lam government. It is undeniable, however, that the peaceful and orderly elections demonstrate that HK authorities, as well as Beijing, have maintained a genuine rules-based democracy in Hong Kong.  

Doubly ironic, the nattering observers of the Western media and audience also fail to credit the government and Beijing for the success of the electoral exercise. If Beijing and the HK Special Administrative Region’s government are not democratic – as charged by Western observers, the Yellow opposition would not have been able to pull off such a victory in the face of massive resistance from the government.

Triply ironic, it is the Beijing media that is beginning to report fraud, anomalies and untoward incidences that prevented pro-government voters from casting their ballots. The last report is over 7,000 recorded cases of “flying voters” or multiple voting by individuals, suspicious frequency of 51%-49% winning margins in favor of the Yellow opposition, government candidates getting 40% of votes but only 10% of seats, and many other irregularities.

Such post-election complaints may be seen as sour grapes; however, the past six months of protest engineered by the networking and collusion of elements of private companies, some levels of the colonially-biased bureaucracy and universities, it is indeed possible for such colluders to carry out such manipulative operations as they have also done n Philippine elections.

Contrary to the insinuations of Western media and the Yellow movement claims of Beijing interference, China’s central authorities have left the situation in the hands of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region’s chief executive. Beijing’s presence limited to PLA soldiers – wearing their off duty attire – cleaning up protesters’ litter in the streets around their barracks with other citizens.

Carrie Lam is a reasonable and fair leader, but she was faced with deviously unreasonable plotters who never intended to resolve the issues. Clearly, the youth in the universities have been radicalized to the point of hysteria, while the younger middle-class population is goaded by a jumble of protest motives that are without clearly achievable goals.

The use of irrationality and belligerence to provoke and escalate is an old strategy in protest movements. It is a tried and tested strategy to stir a crisis into a crescendo. As American strategist Michael Pillsbury admitted in a Bloomberg interview (which anyone can view on YouTube), the strategy is succeeding with the help of lots of U.S. funding and behind-the-scenes direction from shadowy elements.

The use of violence is also an old tactic to intensify emotional impact and cause the mass mind to suspend rationality and discernment. Violence is played up in clearly biased reporting by the controlled or directed media including the Hong Kong Free Press(?), SCMP, Asia Times, Nikkei, and the Western press and wires, all of which can be seen on YouTube.

In the Philippines, the EDSA color revolution plotters utilized the assassination of Ninoy Aquino to generate the required shock impact and consolidate the anti-Marcos sentiment. To this day, after two Aquino governments, the brains behind the Ninoy murder have not even been identified. The popular question persists: Why did the Aquinos themselves fail to investigate to dig up the real culprits?

The Hong Kong police have been outstandingly professional, disciplined and self-restrained to have avoided any fatality while performing their duties, despite being faced with deliberate and very violent provocations. It has been the protestors themselves that have caused the one death and one serious burning injury in the demonstrations.

With their initial electoral win, the protesters may start a witch hunt to persecute police officers for doing their jobs and thereby create massive demoralization among police ranks. If the protesters succeed in breaking the police that would mean the end of the order in Hong Kong and achievement of the goal of the anti-government forces to destabilize the situation for their own complete victory.

One predicament of the Hong Kong SAR government is the naiveté of many of its politicians who want to appear “balanced” but end up being used by anti-HKSAR and anti-China elements. This was clearly shown in the Brookings Institute interview with Christine Loh on “Hong Kong’s precarious future” (YouTube). While she tried very hard to explain many things in a fair manner, she failed to raise the problem of the West’s interference.

Specifically, Loh failed to raise the “new Cold War” declaration of Jimmy Lai, a major leader and billionaire funder of the Yellow movement, and the “no end game” and “infinity war” announcements of Joshua Wong, both of which can be viewed on YouTube. She also failed to mention the countless meetings and photos of these protest leaders with American political hawks.

A comprehensive study of the Hong Kong electoral phenomenon would require a book, which many are certainly making now. In this piece, I just wanted to draw attention to the many similarities between the Philippine EDSA-1 experience and the UP “Diliman Commune” and the Hong Kong Yellow protest victory. 

In the Philippines, the mass hysteria ousted one regime and replaced it with the “democracy icon” Corazon C. Aquino. Thirty years of Aquino’s “democracy” followed, but the Philippines only became poorer and chaotic.  Reality finally set in and finally, a poorer and hungrier people, who had become disillusioned with “democracy”, replaced that Yellow icon with an antithetical leader and political philosophy – President Rodrigo R. Duterte.

President Duterte announced his country’s “separation from the United States” and pivoted to China and Russia. He launched a deadly serious anti-illegal drug war, fearing that his country was on the verge of becoming a “narco-state.” But instead of support, the US has dubbed him a “human rights fiend”.  Unfortunately for the US, this “HR fiend” is leading the  Philippines to become the second-best performing economy in the ASEAN with Chinese support.

The persistent dream of the core of the Hong Kong Yellow movement is to be one with Britain and American. This will not happen. Hong Kong is part of China …  and nothing is going to change that. And anyway, it is only a matter of time before both Britain and the US recede into second class powers even as China continues its rise. Eventually, Hong Kong will seek to hitch its star to China as it becomes the biggest economy in the world.

Hong Kong is but one of the “Two Systems” in the “One Country, Two Systems” modality. The current chaos in Hong Kong shows which of the two systems is not working well in serving its people.

The Hong Kong opposition wants badly to duplicate the current Philippine political system. On the other hand, the Philippines is trying to distance itself from the chaotic liberal democracy that it inherited from the Americans to a more disciplined democratic system. How ironic!

(Zaida Reyes is from economic alliance Phil-BRICS [Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa] Strategic Studies.)