My husband recently unearthed a T-shirt he bought in Hong Kong in 1991. It proclaims “Hong Kong 1997” and shows a man on scaffolding painting over the Union Jack with the flag of the People’s Republic of China. The imminent return of Hong Kong to China was a subject of considerable discussion at the time. A British friend who lived in Hong Kong worried that the Brits had given Hong Kongers too little autonomy, leaving them unprepared for democracy.
With the Tiananmen Square massacre no distant memory, I worried that democracy for Hong Kong would be a mirage. Some Hong Kongers were anxious about the transition, but many were excited, as the T-shirt illustrated. Some years after the hand over occurred, a student from Hong Kong told me how proud she was the day the Brits marched out and the Chinese marched in. Wouldn’t it be great, she opined, if Taiwan could rejoin the mainland so that there would be just one China. I understood her nationalistic pride but was skeptical of her faith in China. As it turned out, Hong Kongers knew perfectly well how to operate in a democracy, but Tiananmen Square proved to be the accurate predictor of just how long that democracy would last.
Hong Kongers had no choice about going back to China. They were never going to be allowed to become another Taiwan. They were promised that the government and economic system left them by the British would continue for at least 50 years. That was a lie. Jan. 6, 2021, was our Tiananmen Square, a violent uprising promulgated by then-President Donald Trump in an attempt to take over our democratic government. Though the insurrection was a scandal at the time, prominent Republicans, among them Mitch McConnell and six Supreme Court justices, were happy to let Trump off the hook while Democrats were either too slow or too careless to prosecute him in a timely manner. Is it any wonder then that enough young voters to put him over the finish line, each as naïve as my Chinese student, saw nothing wrong with returning him to office?
The Tiananmen Square massacre and January 6 were not one-off aberrations. They were modi operandi. Forget about them, and you will seriously underestimate the violent, coercive nature of the governments that promulgated them. January 6 repeats itself every day in the actions of ICE, the corruption of the Justice Department, the murderous boat strikes, the unlawful attack on Iran.
Hong Kongers have to live with and within China; we do not have to live with Trump. Fighting our way back to the restoration of law and democracy is not easy, but once we do, I hope that “the fire next time,” the warning that a would-be dictator is trying to take over our nation, will be countered more effectively.
Kathe Geist lives in Charlemont.