Comment by michael1999
3 years ago
Hong Kong is a drop in the ocean of China, not even 1%. The numerator doesn’t get to choose the denominator.
I don’t have a sense for the Catalonian crisis. What fraction of the 7m Catalonians were active vs the 49m of Spain? I suspect not much more than 3-4%
That feels like a moving goalpost. When your >3.5% protest fails, just redefine the denominator to make it <=3.5%.
It may feel that way but I think the commenter hit the nail on the head. The 3.5% of the population that the ruling group cares a out isn't 3.5% of some cities pop or even regions pop. It's all their constituents. I wonder if Hong Kong and Catalan had broad support outside of their local region if the outcome would be difference.
I wonder about the Scottish independence movement. Brexit could be an example where it was much higher than 3.5% but the outcome was close to the other direction.
I think both of you are "wrong". I'll explain.
The original trigger for the Hong Kong 2019 protests was a bill that allowed the government to approve ad-hoc extraditions to any other jurisdiction. On the surface this bill was 100% within the affairs of the local HKSAR government, and nobody in other parts of China was affected or really gave a damn whether it passed or not.
Carrie Lam, then Chief Executive, tried to get the bill passed by pulling Beijing into the picture. Given the tensions between Beijing and the common Hong Kong people at the time, it quickly escalated to a "national security" issue.
Note that, eventually, the original proposed extradition bill died a slow painful death. The original bill was a local issue, it failed, and hence the 3.5% rule held. (Hence it is incorrect to state that the protest failed. It wasn't a complete failure in this sense. Pyrrhic victory though.)
The independence movement (if you can call it that) obviously failed and protesters were rounded up by the hundreds (lots of riots trials pending). I don't know whether the failure is just due to the huge denominator of the whole Chinese population though. It's certainly a factor, but if you ask me, the stakeholders are not only all the Chinese people, but also international forces that have a vested interest in keeping the status quo in Hong Kong. Much like how the stance of USA influences Taiwan's status.
If the model is that nonviolent protest is always effective if we cross a certain threshold, but that every citizen of Hong Kong could be in the streets without crossing that threshold, this model is meaningless.
Nonviolent protests are critical and can absolutely bring about change, but it is a brutal and drawn out process and not some kind of magic bullet.
By that same metric, the same holds true for violent protests.
Some protests are doomed regardless of if they are violent or not. Some can only succeed if they are violent, some can only succeed if they are nonviolent.
I am not aware of any successful violent protests. I know of some violent revolutions, but if you go there, you better make sure you can actually compete with the opposition.
I must have expressed myself badly. I believe that, if you're engaged in a violent revolution, you have already failed; you will recapitulate the status quo, should you gain control of society. This is why I described nonviolent protest as critical. When I said the process was brutal, it was because nonviolent movements will be opposed brutally, not because brutality is any sort of virtue.
I was making a more nuanced point about this particular conversation, perhaps one that didn't really need to be made.