Dennis Halpin on the suppression of protests in Hong Kong

Writing in The Weekly Standard, Halpin explains why the crackdown in Hong Kong not only portends worse things to come for China’s aggression against democracy within it borders, but also beyond them:

A major Beijing propaganda theme in attempting to deny the democratic aspirations of the people of Hong Kong is that outside agitators, chiefly from the United Kingdom and the United States, are behind the wave of unrest. China’s government mouthpiece, the Global Times, editorialized earlier this fall that “the more [extremists] count on support from Washington and London, the more absolutely they will fail.” President Obama was put on the defensive on Hong Kong by his Chinese hosts at the APEC summit. In a joint press conference with Xi Jinping, Obama declared, according to Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, “On the issue of Hong Kong, I was unequivocal in saying to President Xi that the United States has no involvement in fostering the protest that took place there.” [….]

According to the Los Angeles Times, Xi had pointed this fall to Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems” as the model for ending the political separation of Taiwan. The Times went on to quote Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council as pointing out “that more than 70 percent of Taiwanese people” consider Xi’s suggestion “unfit” for consideration.

Taiwan’s president, Ma Ying-jeou, cut to the crux of the situation by pointing out in a November 1 interview with the New York Times, “If mainland China can practice democracy in Hong Kong or if mainland China itself can become more democratic, then we can shorten the psychological distance between people from two sides of the Taiwan Strait.” Ma, the Times noted, “risked antagonizing Beijing .??.??. by voicing support for protesters in Hong Kong and for greater democracy in mainland China.” [Dennis Halpin, The Weekly Standard]

One day, historians may conclude that the failure of the U.S. and Britain to stand with the protestors in Hong Kong convinced the leaders in Beijing that they could go further and suffer no prohibitive consequences.