Cipher Brief Expert Martin Petersen is the former Deputy Executive Director of the CIA. At the time of Tiananmen, he was Deputy Director of the Office of East Asia Analysis.
CIPHER BRIEF EXPERT TAKE — The Chinese leadership’s handling of Tiananmen and the aftermath can give us some idea of what to expect if, as seems likely, the regime fully implements the new security law the NPC just passed. The situations are similar in key aspects, but differ in important ways.
Like Tiananmen, the Chinese leadership sees the Hong Kong democracy movement as a threat to not only their control of Hong Kong but to the stability of the regime. Deng and the others attributed the collapse of the regimes in Eastern Europe in no small measure to a failure to take decisive action early. They believed there would be a price to pay in the West, but that the lure of the China market would bring investors back. International opprobrium would fade as Western attention turned elsewhere, and the regime would be free to deal with the dissidents as they chose. They also expected their Asian neighbors to remain essentially silent. And, that is basically what happened.
The reading of the Hong Kong situation is probably very similar, but there are important differences. Unlike Tiananmen, it is not the sons and daughters of the party elite that are in the streets in Hong Kong, which actually makes it easier for Beijing to crack down. The Chinese economy today is much more integrated into the global economy, Hong Kong is a very important node of that integration, and the large Western presence and financial stake make the price of a crackdown potentially greater than Tiananmen.
The regime has already made the hard decision—to pass the law. The question in Beijing is how best to implement it with minimum costs. Quiet but aggressive arrests of key figures behind the Hong Kong demonstrations is a certainty. I suspect the calculation in Zhongnanhai might go something like this: a quick clampdown and end to street violence will minimize foreign blowback; there will be sanctions but China is too important a market, and Western business will be back because they have too much invested already; Shanghai will eventually replace Hong Kong as our key financial center; and our Asian neighbors will stay quiet, and it will be a good object lesson for them—just how little the West can really do to protect them.
Beijing may offer some concessions of a sort to go with this potential hardline. After Tiananmen, the West put an embargo on arms sales to Beijing, which is still in force. Beijing did sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1992, the Convention on Chemical Weapons in 1993, and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996. They may them offer something on the issues of the day in an effort to dampen Western reaction, perhaps something on the environment or intellectual property rights or market access.
What leverage we have can be put in three bins. The first is government actions, specifically sanctions. To be effective it cannot be the United States alone and the sanctions must bite. The sanctions with the greatest potential impact are those that target specific individuals and entities in China rather than broad segments of the economy. Limiting visas for individuals or classes of individuals, like college students associated with PRC military and intelligence entities, is one such possible option, as is looking into the finances and activities of companies associated with senior Chinese leaders and their families. Britain has relaxed visa and immigration requirements for Hong Kong holders of British Overseas Passports. The PRC may be happy to see them go, but it is a loss to China and a gain for the UK.
The second is actions by foreign investors in China and not just in Hong Kong. They can hardly be expected to disinvest in China, but they have important decisions to make about where they invest in the future and how dependent they want to be on China for key parts of their supply chain. China’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic is not a confidence builder.
Lastly, there is the control of the narrative. The degree that Hong Kong stays in the news will act as some break, probably not great, on the Chinese leadership. They are sensitive to negative publicity, as their efforts to spin the COVID-19 story demonstrates. China is working social media in an effort to spin the Hong Kong story and direct attention elsewhere. Control of the narrative is important, because unlike at Tiananmen, the Chinese people today have much more access to information from the outside, despite regime efforts to control that flow. The PRC leaders see information like the Hong Kong demonstrations as a threat to their control.
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