Beijing’s position on Hong Kong understandable: Shanmugam

SINGAPORE — Beijing is unlikely to give in to the demands of the Occupy Central protesters in Hong Kong and would not allow the Special Administrative Region to change the political system in China, said Minister for Foreign Affairs K Shanmugam, who noted that there has been a lot of anti-China bias in Western media reporting on the issue.

In an exclusive interview with Lianhe Zaobao published today, Mr Shanmugam said that China will approach Hong Kong with the perspective that what it allows in Hong Kong could have an impact on the rest of China.

“So China will be very careful,” he added.

“From the Chinese leadership perspective: giving into the demands may affect the stability of China as a whole … This perspective is entirely understandable.”

On the anti-China bias in Western media reports, he noted in the interview that they have used the “usual points” claiming that China has denied Hong Kong democracy and that this would impact on the freedom which has helped the financial hub become successful.

But the truth, said Mr Shanmugam, is that Hong Kong did fine without democracy in the last 150 years and the British and the media did not think Hong Kong needed democracy.

The Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984 on the handover of Hong Kong from Britain to China also did not mention universal suffrage. “What Beijing is proposing is more than what Hong Kong ever had under the British. The Western media do not report these,” said Mr Shanmugam, referring to China’s recent decision to allow Hong Kong voters to elect its future chief executive from a list of two or three candidates selected by a nominating committee.

Mr Shanmugam, who is also Minister for Law, said that from the Chinese leaders’ perspective, their priorities for China would be ensuring unity, progress and improving the lives of the country’s 1.3 billion people.

“Today China’s GDP per capita is about US$6,800. China’s leaders will want to achieve the goal of becoming a moderately prosperous country: before they will contemplate any move to democratise,” he said, adding that China will look at two examples which will confirm its view.

The first is the United States, where partisan politics have led to dysfunctionality in which the government has been unable to pass a budget for years nor fix the budget deficit nor handle immigration reform, among other issues. The US is also not able to look at the longer term and plan for that because of the short electoral cycles, said Mr Shanmugam .

“China will look at all this and say a poorer, less developed country cannot afford the luxury of such dysfunctionality,” he added in the interview with the Chinese-language daily.

China will also look at the example of Soviet Union and what happens if political restructuring precedes economic restructuring and growth. Following the break-up of Soviet Union, Russia was seen as weak and the Western powers then no longer gave Russia the attention or respect that Russia probably should have gotten.

“So China will be firm … It is not going to institute any major political change to copy the Western models in the short term. The leadership will believe that any such move will be disastrous for China and will hurt the people of China,” said Mr Shanmugam.

How then should the Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters’ demands be viewed?

First, there needs to be a clear understanding that China has acted in accordance with the Basic Law, said Mr Shanmugam.

So if the Hong Kong people want a change from the Basic Law – they have to recognise that Hong Kong is part of China, and there are some things China will accept; and some things which are red lines for China, he added.

There also needs to be a clear understanding of Hong Kong’s extreme reliance on China for Hong Kong’s jobs and livelihoods, he added.

“Is the average Hong Konger prepared for the trade-offs?” he asked.

As for China, it of course views the protesters with suspicion and wonders if some Western countries have anything to do with some aspect of the protests, said Mr Shanmugam.