How Hong Kong Plays Out Will Define Both China and Our World

The protests in Hong Kong started over CEO Carrie Lam’s extradition bill and have turned into a defining issue for the trajectory of China as a state and a society, and for the Chinese state’s relationships internationally.What Carrie Lam does is important, but what President Xi Jinping orders to be done is definitive.The protests are not, as Chinese state media likes to say, about ‘escalating violence by radicals’. Some 2 million out of Hong Kong’s 7.5 million people have taken part in the demonstrations—which makes this a mass expression of views, not the efforts of a ‘tiny number of radicals’.Footage over the past two months has shown the world that the protesters come from all walks of life and all age groups. Professionals like air-traffic controllers, civil servants, construction workers, lawyers and finance workers have joined in strikes or other protest action, disrupting essential services. Their bravery in doing so should shame all of us who mutter about Xi’s state ‘punishing us’ by holding up wine shipments. John Howard’s recent comments about our fundamental democratic values, the effects of authoritarianism and the resilience of the human spirit on display in Hong Kong remind of us of what’s really at stake here.

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