High Stakes for China in Hong Kong Protests

Repercussions from the free-ish enclave throughout the authoritarian country.

Hu Jia, one of China's best-known democracy activists, said from his house arrest in Beijing: "The outcome of this battle for democracy will also determine ­future battles for democracy for all of China."

China's most famous film director, Zhang Yimou, has said: "Under the big political umbrella, a man is just like a leaf in the ocean, with no control of his destiny …"

In Hong Kong, in contrast, tens of thousands of protesters are each carrying their own umbrellas, symbolising their determination to create their own destinies.

Comments

[Anon E. Mouse]

This is going to get interesting. If the Chinese government acquiesces to the demands of pro-democracy protesters, they risk losing control. If they hammer the protesters like they did in Tiananmen Square, they risk international backlash in the form of harshly-worded diplomatic letters. I'm fairly certain of the direction this is going to go.

[ant1sthenes]

They also risk losing some foreign capital, potentially.

[Anon E. Mouse]

Yea, I'm fairly certain that if it comes to a choice of losing power, or losing foreign capital, they'll go with losing capital, and they'll make up the loss by taking over everything in the nine-dash-line.