Can Hong Kong Win Its Freedom?

It’s a question worth asking after the superb turnout at the July 1st protest. The media can’t quite agree on whether that turnout was 200,000 or 530,000, but it was enough to make the event a big success.

The NYT coverage had the most depth. It quoted protest organizers as estimating that 350,000 started the march, and that thousands more joined in along the route. It also reported that the protest’s tone was more confrontational than last year’s, focusing more on demands for democracy in all of China rather than just more local democracy in Hong Kong itself.

Reuters says that organizers estimated that 530,000 people showed up, topping the generally accepted figure of 500,000 for last year, but that the crowd was less confrontational toward the Party (but then, Reuters is the “news” organization that wouldn’t use the word “terrorist,” even after 9/11).

Had Beijing simply gone along with “one country, two systems” as agreed, Hong Kong’s elections would have been a local annoyance to be fought quietly at City Hall. Through its own arrogance and stupidity, the Communist Party made Hong Kong a glaring example of Chinese people bravely and defiantly demanding rights–rights originating from a higher source than the Central Committee. Either way, Beijing must be awfully worried that it’s facing an invasion by an exotic species of foreign thought. Call it payback for those pesky snakehead fish.