Translated by Bai Ruixue Author’s note: this is an excerpt of an essay originally published in the Ming Pao Daily on 19th October, 2014. Certain paragraphs have been slightly edited and supplemented for English readers. the chinese media has accused the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement of being planned and funded by the us. It has alleged that amongst both the so-called ‘three leaders’ – or ‘trio’ – who first suggested the Occupy Central movement last year, and amongst the pan-democrats, are those who have accepted funds or have participated in activities of the National Endowment for Democracy (ned), a funding agency sponsored by the us Congress. Indeed many of the pan-democrat leaders have always been pro-America or pro-Britain – although after the handover in 1997 this has been more implicit than explicit – and therefore hold views and practices that I have never shared. However, it is generally known that these pan-democrats are not really the leaders of the Umbrella movement. It is rather the Hong Kong Federation of Students (hkfs) and the secondary school students’ organisation, Scholarism, that have led the movement – and even their leadership roles have lasted only for a short time. From the very beginning, due to their weaknesses, the main pan-democrat leaders were never the ones who called for Occupy Central. It was left to the trio to make the call, although even they were hesitant and so their actual plan was never realised. While an earlier occupation, which might be viewed as a rehearsal, was launched on 2nd July, it was the hkfs which planned and led it. It then continued its o••ensive and called for the class boycott on 22nd September that directly led to the umbrella movement. Although on 28th September Benny Tai – a law scholar who is one of the trio – o•cially announced the beginning of Occupy Central, this was only in the light of the actions of the students, and by this time the Occupy Central trio, not to mention the pan-democrats, had already lost credibility. Since the 28th September, even hkfs has not been able to lead the movement, as it has been transformed into a movement where countless individuals act freely, not directed by any groups. The mainstream pan-democrats still provide some logistical support, but only on a small scale; they do not really want to engage in this movement and, even if they did want to, the fact is that they would not be able to. To think that proving that some pan-democrats have received ned funding is equal to proving that the umbrella movement is influenced, funded or planned by the us government only makes this slander more contemptible. The hkfs has never needed to receive any funding from outsiders, simply due to the fact that it has huge reserves: all Hong Kong university students are compulsory due-paying members of student unions. Although a Communist Party newspaper has claimed that Scholarism’s Joshua Wong has received ned funding, this has been denied and the newspaper has been unable to produce evidence. What is more laughable is that the newspaper published a photo of Joshua Wong meeting with Anson Chan (the former Chief Executive of the sar government, who has since been attacked by the Pro-Beijing media as an agent of the us and uk) and certain white people as ‘evidence’ of ‘colluding with the foreign enemy’. However if they had first checked the activities of the ned in Hong Kong before they published it, they would not have made this mistake. On September 5th 2004, the English language newspaper The Standard reported that the ned – through another organisation, the National Democratic Institute for International A••airs (ndi) – had funded technical assistance and training for several political parties, including the Democratic Party, the dab and the Liberal Party (the latter two are both pro-Beijing parties). On September 7th the Economic Journal reported that both the Liberal Party and the dab denied that they had received us funding, but acknowledged that they had attended related seminars several times. If merely meeting up with Anson Chan and certain white persons amounts to ‘colluding with the foreign enemy’, is the dab not therefore also a ‘us agent’? Although these us public funds are subsidising Mainland and Hong Kong civil society organisations, according to this report, ‘Several of the [us] grants support work to be undertaken in cooperation with Chinese government entities and/or with academics, consulting firms and nongovernmental organisations in China. For example, one project includes support for working with the Supreme People’s Court, the National People’s Congress and other counterparts to promote criminal defense reforms in China; another project funds a partnership between an American university and a legal reform consulting firm operating in China to help develop China’s system for providing legal aid in rural communities.’1 However funding is not limited to that directly from the us. As everybody knows, various international bodies such as the un Commission on Human Rights, the International Labour Organisation, the United Nations Development Programme, not to mention the so called purely financial assistance of World Bank aid programs have all provided subsidies to various Chinese government and public institutions. The us is an important source of funding of these international institutions and the gao is also obliged to report these international bodies’ China projects. The United Nations Development Programme, for example, has funded Chinese institutions engaged in electoral system and criminal law improvement projects. Meanwhile, between 1999 and 2006 the Asian Development Bank also provided funds of us3.55 million to relevant Chinese institutions for similar projects. Some might say that these reports only show one side of the story, but since the Chinese government has not released any information, it is largely responsible for any information imbalance. us private funds. The mainland media does sometimes disclose some relevant news, however. On 23rd February 2004, the Economic Observer reported that in 2002 British scholar Anthony Saich served as an advocate for a Tsinghua-Harvard joint training programme for senior o•cials aimed at providing management training to the new generation of Chinese o•cials. Prior to this he had served as the Ford Foundation’s Chief Representative in China. Unlike the ned, the Ford Foundation is a foundation that mainly relies on private donations. According to mainland mouthpieces, this private funding also constitutes us forces interfering in China’s internal a••airs. In reality, however, much of the us private funding is used to help the Chinese government engage in counterfeiting civil society, while the real civil society receives minimum funding. As Chinese University of Hong Kong sociology professor Anthony Spires explains, China welcomes the funds from us foundations for health care, education and research, but not the rapid social change that grassroots ngos could deliver: ‘Major us foundations tend to award large grants to established organisations either controlled by the Chinese government or under its influence rather than independent or grassroots ngos.’ Government-organised ngos, or so-called gongos, ‘can serve as tools for domestic control of new social forces while also attracting foreign funds for programs the Chinese government itself is unwilling to support.’2 Chinese o•cials have been developing cosy relations with the Western and Japanese ruling elites and tycoons throughout the era of market reform. They have, therefore, decided that restoring capitalism in China is a better option for them. The only di••erence between Chinese capitalism and Western capitalism is that the Chinese ruling class prefers an open dictatorship of the bourgeoisie with the party’s leading cadres at its core, and does away with any pretence of ‘government by consent’. The ccp’s plan for the Hong Kong political reform package amounts to the same thing. Mr. C.Y. Leung, the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong government, in explaining why Hong Kong people cannot have genuine universal su••rage,said that this ‘would allow the city government to follow more business-friendly policies… if it’s entirely a numbers game and numeric representation, then obviously you would be talking to half of the people in Hong Kong who earn less than •1,800 a month. Then you would endup with that kind of politics and policies.’ However, it is precisely the kind of naked crony capitalism that he wants to maintain, rather than any imaginary ‘foreign intervention’, that is responsible for the fact that Hong Kong people, in their hundreds of thousands, are now occupying the streets. Au Loong-yu is a Hong Kong-based social movement activist, and editorial board member of China Labor Net. He was the chief contributor of the book China’s Rise: Strength and Fragility, published jointly by Merlin Press, Resistance Books and IIRE in 2013. He was previously a researcher for Globalization Monitor from 2004 to 2006, and has contributed to journals such as Working USA, New Politics, and Against the Current.
Amandla! is free here, but we welcome donations.
