On this episode of China Uncensored,
Hong Kong just elected a new leader,
and the winner is…
Beijing!
Hi, welcome to China Uncensored,
I'm your host Chris Chappell.
Things have been a little on edge
in Hong Kong lately.
And I'm not talking about David Beckham
posting a video of his trip in Hong Kong
and saying he had a good time in "China."
I guess it's true what they say.
No one can offend it like Beckham.
Anyway, even more controversial than David Beckham,
is the election of Hong Kong's Chief Executive,
which is basically like their governor-slash-mayor-
slash-leader of the undead.
That's current chief executive CY Leung.
Clearly a man beloved by the people.
But moving on to the question
of who the next chief executive will be:
polls were showing that John Tsang,
Hong Kong's former financial secretary,
was backed by almost half of adults,
while his closest rival Carrie Lam
had the support of only just over a quarter.
But the Chinese regime wanted Carrie Lam!
So they decided to give her a helping hand.
The top Chinese officials in charge of
telling the future Chief Executive exactly what to do,
made it clear that Lam was their choice
for the person to tell what to do to.
Fortunately—the most popular candidate won anyway!
Haha, in the crazy alternate reality Hong Kong
that has universal suffrage, that is.
But in the real Hong Kong,
the people don't actually get to directly vote
for their Chief Executive.
It's done through an electoral college-type system.
And if you think America's electoral college
has a few holes,
well, Hong Kong's is one giant crater.
In Hong Kong,
a city of more than 7 million people,
only 1,200 representatives get to vote
for Chief Executive.
And get this:
The vast majority of those representatives
are not even elected by the people.
They're special interest groups like the hotel industry,
or the transportation industry,
plus a healthy dose of representatives
from the mainland Chinese government.
There are historical reasons for this structure:
namely, Great Britain.
But it was supposed to be reformed.
Back in 2007—
so long ago that the 1st generation iPhone
was the hottest thing on the market—
the Hong Kong government was like:
"Hey, we wanna have direct elections
for our Chief Executive in 2012.
One person, one vote."
And in December that year,
the National People's Congress—
a.k.a. the Chinese government—
tentatively agreed.
But they wanted to push the goalposts
back to 2017.
Because you know,
elections are really complicated and this sort of thing
takes 10 years of careful planning or whatever.
But in 2014,
the National People's Congress realized
their distant goalposts were actually getting close.
So they changed the rules and announced that
"The Chief Executive shall be a person
who loves the country and loves Hong Kong."
Which is Party speak for,
"We'll pick the candidates and then you can
vote for one of them."
Which is like your parents taking you to Baskin Robbins
and telling you,
"You can have any flavor of ice cream you want...
as long as it's Pistachio, Licorice, or Rum Raisin."
Seriously, who puts raisins in ice cream?
That announcement was followed by
79 days of mega protests.
Shot on my iPhone 6.
The Hong Kong legislature eventually rejected
Beijing's our-way-or-the-highway proposal,
but that still left Hong Kong without universal suffrage.
So by the time 2017 rolled around,
it was still the old system.
Basically, the Communist Party won by proposing
an alternative so bad that
no Hong Kongers wanted it,
and in the meantime, quietly moving the goalposts back
as far as possible.
So by the time I can pick peanut butter chocolate
for Chief Executive,
we'll probably have iPhone 13's.
So it comes as no surprise
that in this year's March 26th Chief Executive election,
the candidate who won
was the one Beijing wanted all along.
Carrie Lam won with 777 votes.
That's a two-thirds majority—
despite her only getting around a quarter
of popular support in pre-election polling.
She was a gracious enough winner, though.
She commended the other candidates, saying,
"They ran good campaigns that taught me a lot."
Namely, that you don't have to be popular
to win a rigged election.
A major student-led political party called it
"a nightmare to Hong Kongers."
Which is ridiculous.
You wake up from nightmares.
But the new Chief Executive
has promised to heal Hong Kong.
"My priority will be to heal the divide,
and to ease the frustrations,
and to unite our society to move forward."
And maybe she will.
Who knows?
It's just that the last candidate backed by Beijing
was CY Leung.
Last December, he announced he would step down
and not run for reelection for,
you know, "family reasons"—
which is code for:
He's so unpopular among Hong Kongers
that he basically can't do his job anymore.
Oh, and he likely pissed someone off
in the Communist Party leadership.
You see, the battle over Hong Kong
isn't just played out in the election
for Chief Executive.
Hong Kong has been a thorny problem
for Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
Within the Party hierarchy,
the guy in charge of Hong Kong affairs
is head of the National People's Congress,
Zhang Dejiang.
And the guy who controls Zhang Dejiang from behind the scenes
is former Party leader and Xi Jinping's amphibian archenemy,
Jiang Zemin.
For the last several years,
Zhang Dejiang has seemingly made a pet project
of destabilizing Hong Kong.
After all, if Xi Jinping has to deal with Hong Kong,
that takes his focus away from
getting rid of his political enemies
with his anti-corruption campaign.
Like I said, Zhang Dejiang is in charge
of the National People's Congress.
The same congress that issued the rules in 2014
about how Hongkongers could only vote
for preselected chief executive candidates.
Which sparked the Umbrella Movement.
Zhang's National People's Congress
also last year issued an "interpretation"
of Hong Kong's constitution
that let them throw out two recently elected
Hong Kong pro-democracy legislators.
A move guaranteed to put the city on edge.
So since Zhang Dejiang wanted Carrie Lam,
was her win a loss for Xi Jiping?
Not necessarily.
That's because Xi Jinping already won his battle
over Hong Kong's Chief Executive.
The one who's about to step down,
CY Leung—the guy reviled throughout Hong Kong
for ordering police to use tear gas
against student protesters in the Umbrella Movement—
was also in the Jiang Zemin camp.
Everyone expected him to run for re-election.
And let's face it,
if he had,
he'd have won.
But according to what an inside source
told the South China Morning Post,
Zhang Dejiang "had recommended to the Communist Party's
Politburo Standing Committee
that the central government
should support Leung's re-election,
but this was rejected by Xi."
And then Leung "shocked" everyone
by saying he wouldn't run for reelection.
Interesting.
As for the election,
a source close to the Xi leadership told the Epoch Times
that Xi had "no preferred candidate,"
but was only concerned that,
"Hong Kong must remain stable."
Which seems to me to suggest
Xi is choosing to pick his battles,
and whoever is Hong Kong's Chief Executive
isn't a big concern from him
now that he's ousted CY Leung.
So what will happen in Hong Kong
under Carrie Lam?
Well, it's pretty clear now that Hong Kong's Chief Executive
doesn't have much real power.
She'll probably just follow Beijing.
And what Beijing orders will depend on
whichever side wins the power struggle.
So what do you think about Carrie Lam's victory
in Hong Kong?
Leave your comments below.
And remember, we can keep making
episodes of China Uncensored
because of support from viewers like you
on Patreon.
If you can, contribute today.
Once again I'm your host Chris Chappell,
see you next time.
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