Mind the Gap | Hong Kong remains stranded in the wake of mainland China’s post-Tiananmen growth
What the world saw since 1989 is a China whose government and people are sure about their direction – improving the economy and standard of living. This is unlike Hong Kong, where successive administrations since 1997 failed to articulate and embody a collective purpose.
The history of besieged regimes is ultimately a tale of arrogance and blindness to the ruler’s shortcomings, of wilful ignorance from uncomfortable realities.
The June 1989 protest in Tiananmen and its subsequent suppression represented an unavoidable collision point for China. Its consequences can be felt today in its social, technological and economic development.
China’s post-Tiananmen policies and the world’s reaction determined if an authoritarian regime would display more signs of deterioration typical of a decrepit one-party state – or be capable of modernisation and economic reforms.
Tiananmen only heightened Hong Kong’s uncertainty about 1997. But looking back, what looked like a revelation of cruel and absolute truth has today been rendered impermanent and transient.
China is now the second-largest economy in the world. Over the past 28 years, China’s economy expanded at an astonishing rate. Spending, debt and investment have been undertaken on a massive scale. Thirty new airports, 42,000km of highways and a new skyscraper every five days have been built in China in the past five years.
Today, it is inconceivable that the Chinese government would consider rolling tanks into the streets of Beijing to quell a protest. The domestic and international repercussions would be devastating.
