Abstract
Hong Kong’s democracy, localist, and nativist movements (and assuming these are indeed three groups rather than one), before and after their opening up by the umbrellas, arrived at the same old dead end of political impasse, which is to say at a status quo victory for the property-owning class. This may have even been the point: the point is to participate in the ‘civil society’ and demand that which you cannot have, while waiting for the implosion or liberal-democratic convergence of the mainland, or you at least wait for the next opportunity to do it all over again. (This statement reflects my own response to the closing argument of Prasenjit Duara in his excellent chapter, ‘Hong Kong as a Global Frontier: Interface of China, Asia, and the World,’ in Hong Kong in the Cold War, eds. Priscilla Roberts and John M. Carroll (Hong Kong University Press, 2016).) The earlier, 2011 ‘Wukan Uprising’ that took place 120 kilometers to the east makes for an interesting, resonant comparison in the analysis of impasse, and the limits and failures of liberalism and economism, or in other words the de-politicization of politics through the market and ‘growth’ as much as by sheer force or repression. This chapter presents a basic narrative of the rise and fall of the Guangdong villagers’ protests over land seizures and for justice and ‘democracy,’ before turning to an attempt to mine their meaning for politics more generally. There are two political bottoms lines right now, in effecting political change and contesting or bending the government in some reformist or otherwise progressive way. But these exist, as in Hong Kong and as in much of the world, in a context of impasse, or a political conjuncture defined in no small part by the triumph of de-politicization and the power or rule of capital and money. But if this is a dark period for politics around the globe, it is—contra liberalism old and new—in some ways still more, not less, promising in China as compared to other places such as the USA and even Hong Kong.
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Notes
- 1.
This statement reflects my own response to the closing argument of Prasenjit Duara in his excellent chapter, ‘Hong Kong as a Global Frontier: Interface of China, Asia, and the World,’ in Hong Kong in the Cold War, eds. Priscilla Roberts and John M. Carroll (Hong Kong University Press, 2016).
- 2.
The long essays of Perry Anderson in his New Left Review journal are important for capturing this sense of bleakness. But see as well the critical but generous review of the ‘ultra’ or ‘libcom’ Internet-based publishing group, Endnotes by Tim Barker, ‘The Bleak Left’ (N+1 Issue Spring 28, 2017. https://nplusonemag.com/issue-28/reviews/the-bleak-left/). I discuss this issue of bleakness and political possibility (or its absence) in more detail in the final chapter.
- 3.
See, for a recent example, Zi Yang’s report, ‘Rural China and the Asian Methamphetamine Trade: a Case Study of Lufeng,’ from Japan, via the November 20, Modern Tokyo Times, via The Jamestown Foundation think tank in the USA.: http://moderntokyotimes.com/?p=6553. Accessed Nov. 20, 2017.
- 4.
A basic timeline of the Wukan saga can be found in Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2019006/symbol-chinas-rural-democracy-five-years-struggle-wukan. Accessed Nov. 20, 2017.
- 5.
I am indebted to Laurence Dang’s excellent M.A. thesis, ‘Wuthering Wukan: Community Communication and Social Drama in Peasants’ Mass Incidents in China,’ supervised by Tim Simpson at Macau University for this and other insights.
- 6.
Dang, ‘Wuthering Wukan,’ 42.
- 7.
For an elaborate discussion, see Steve Hess, ‘Foreign Media Coverage and Protest Outcomes in China: The case of the 2011 Wukan rebellion’ (Modern Asian Studies 49.1 2015: 177–203).
- 8.
Chen, ‘The Example of Wukan.’ The Chinese original of Chen’s article can be found online at http://blog.qq.com/qzone/622007996/1327030504.htm. Accessed Jan. 7, 2015, An English translation by David Bandurski can be found at the China Media Project of HKU http://chinamediaproject.org/2012/01/30/the-legacy-of-wukan/. Accessed Nov. 20, 2017.
- 9.
See Edward Wong, ‘Canny Villagers Grasp Keys to Loosen China’s Muzzle’ in December 22, 2011, The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/23/world/asia/canny-wukan-villagers-grasp-keys-to-loosen-chinas-muzzle.html. Accessed Nov. 20, 2017. I should note that this article also makes note of the Wukan media savviness and self-awareness. It is an exceptionally smart report from Hong Kong, though it puts Hong Kong’s influence in only positive terms for Guangdong.
- 10.
The film was later expanded into six parts from four, after the most recent and perhaps final stage of the protests in 2016. (We’ll broach the latest developments below). Not surprisingly, the last two parts are far more pessimistic but also based largely in the USA and outside of China (their access was blocked far more and they spoke to fewer villagers in Wukan). http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/specialseries/2017/04/wukan-china-democracy-experiment-170403074626458.html. Accessed Nov. 20, 2017.
- 11.
Bo became the leader of Chongqing after Wang Yang’s time there. His success, including in wiping out mafia and white collar crime, could be read by some as an indictment of Wang, just as the two of them were often read as being in a competition for the rise to the top (which at one level is merely common sense or banally true). Needless to say, Wang Yang won the long game, and is now a member of the Standing Committee of the Politbureau, thanks in part to Wukan being settled under his watch or guidance.
- 12.
James Pomfret, ‘Special Report: Freedom fizzles out in China’s rebel town of Wukan’ March 1, 2013, https://in.reuters.com/article/us-china-wukan/special-report-freedom-fizzles-out-in-chinas-rebel-town-of-wukan-idINBRE91R1J020130228. Accessed Nov. 20, 2017.
- 13.
Xinhua report on March 14, 2014, China Daily, ‘Wukan Village Deputy Head Detained.’ https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2014-03/14/content_17348253.htm. Accessed Nov. 20, 2017.
- 14.
See China Daily September 12, 2016, ‘Lufeng makes progress on Wukan problem.’ http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/regional/2016-09/12/content_26772987.htm. Accessed Nov. 17, 2017. There is enough detail in this particular report to make a persuasive case that the state did redress some of the injustices and took pains to alleviate the unhappiness in Wukan. That this was not enough for many of the people in 2016 is also clear.
- 15.
According to one report by Michelle Wines in January 16, 2012, The New York Times, the villagers had claimed 6.8 square miles have been taken and sold, with Yang Semao claiming ‘far more’ may have been, but he had no way of knowing. ‘Protester Made a Boss by the Party He Defied’ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/world/asia/protest-leader-becomes-party-boss-in-chinese-village-that-rebelled.html. Accessed Nov. 19, 2017.
- 16.
As cited in a very useful essay by Johan Lagerkvist, ‘The Wukan Uprising and Chinese State-Society Relations: Toward “Shadow Civil Society”?,’ 346. (International Journal of China Studies 3.3 2012: 345–361.) The last phrase quoted here is from Prof. Sun, and the former from Prof Lagerkvist.
- 17.
See Heilman and Perry, op cit. chapter 1.
- 18.
See Ho Fung Hung’s blog post on the Columbia University Press website, ‘South China’s Protests Are Not as Subversive as Many Think.’ http://www.cupblog.org/?p=5224. Accessed Nov. 20, 2017.
- 19.
See Ching Kwan Lee and Yonghong Zhang, ‘The Power of Instability: Unraveling the Microfoundations of Bargained Authoritarianism in China’ (American Journal of Sociology 118.6 2013: 1475–1508). The functionalism or ‘closed circles’ in some such social science research is striking, though the empirical detail remains valuable.
- 20.
Stanley Lubman, ‘Wukan: New Election, Same Old Story’ (March 27, 2014, Wall Street Journal). https://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/03/27/wukan-new-election-same-old-story/. Accessed Nov. 15, 2017.
- 21.
See Yu Hua, ‘In China, the Grievances Keep Coming’ in The New York Times January 1, 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/02/opinion/in-china-the-grievances-keep-coming.html. Accessed Nov. 15, 2017.
- 22.
See Hess, ‘Foreign Media Coverage,’ 6–7.
- 23.
See also Luigi Tomba, ‘What Does Wukan Have to Do With Democracy?’ Made in China: A Quarterly on Chinese Labour, Civil Society, and Rights (Issue 4, 2016). https://www.chinoiresie.info/what-does-wukan-have-to-do-with-democracy/. Accessed Nov. 20, 2017. Tomba asks a great question: does every protest in China have to be about some movement toward democracy? Clearly the answer is no.
- 24.
See Tomba, Ibid.
- 25.
Lagerkvist, Ibid., 355.
- 26.
Lagerkvist, 357.
- 27.
My point is that one would truly have to be in Wukan and closely associated with it to venture a confident, warranted analysis along these lines. Not possible for the present author, and not least due to lack of funding from the Hong Kong RGC. But the clan factor does indeed seem too important to leave out here or to banish to a footnote altogether, and the return to clan relations and clan politics in general has been noted by many others. I should note that I had one ‘source’ or Guangdong-rooted comrade who wanted to argue along these same lines, but for my own part I was unable to receive a grant from the HK UGC to fund such investigations/trips.
- 28.
See, for example, the quasi-academic webzine ‘Chuang,’ volume 1, an American/Californian/West Coast view of ‘the Chinese proletariat.’ http://chuangcn.org/journal/one/. Accessed Nov. 15, 2017.
- 29.
See James Pomfret, Ibid.
- 30.
See again the always useful China Media Project at Hong Kong University, translation care of David Bandurski, ‘Wukan official resigns from elected position.’ http://cmp.hku.hk/2012/10/24/wukan-democracy-leader-resigns/. Accessed Nov. 20, 2017.
- 31.
See ‘Interview: We Called on Trump For Justice in Wukan’ at the Cold War news agency Radio Free Asia on December 16, 2016: http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/wukan-zhuang-12162016161546.html. Accessed Nov. 20, 2017.
- 32.
See Dan Levin, April 1, 2014, The New York Times, ‘Years After Revolt, Chinese Village Glumly Returns to Polls.’ https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/01/world/asia/years-after-revolt-chinese-village-glumly-returns-to-polls.html. Accessed Nov. 21, 2017.
- 33.
I am unable to find any evidence of an appeal by Yang Semao.
- 34.
Dan Levin. Ibid.
- 35.
The fate of their appeals is unknown as of the time of writing, but the repressive tactic is obvious enough.
- 36.
Put another way, what offends in such an equation of Tibet with Hong Kong (or Xinjiang and even Taiwan) is that Hong Kong is not oppressed or dominated or subject to Han chauvinism; it is a perpetrator of the latter more than anything else, and has its own legacies of racism in regards to South and Southeast Asians living in the city, just as it exists in a position of great privilege in comparison to other places within China. Not all SARS are alike, and if Taiwan has been de facto independent for several generations, the same cannot be said of Hong Kong, which depends on China in numerous ways. For an example of such false and superficial equivalencies, see a blog by a couple China experts in the Los Angeles Review of Books: ‘Could Hong Kong become Tibet 2.0?.’ https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/chinablog/hong-kong-become-tibet-2-0/. Accessed Nov. 24, 2017.
- 37.
This figure taken from a recent study on Chinese inequality by Thomas Piketty, Li Yang, and Gabriel Zucman. They put the 1978 number at 70%. See their ‘Capital Accumulation, Private Property and Rising Inequality in China, 1978–2015’ at the National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 23368. June 2017. http://www.nber.org/papers/w23368. Accessed Nov. 24, 2017.
- 38.
Lu as quoted by Rachel Wang in her 2013 Foreign Policy article on Wukan, ‘Setback for Chinese Democracy: Why Protest Leader Admits He “Regrets” Taking Charge of Wukan’ (http://www.tealeafnation.com/2013/02/setback-for-chinese-democracy-why-protest-leader-admits-he-regrets-taking-charge-of-wukan). See also Prof. Lu Xinyu, at http://www.weibo.com/2569634794/zjaUnF5UC?type=comment. Accessed June 2014.
- 39.
Many on the non-Chinese left would argue that China is already capitalist, just as the right or liberals would argue that alas it is not truly capitalist but a degraded, crony form of it. But all of this begs the question of what form or variety of capitalism, how to define this, and so on. It would generally be admitted by those who actually study the PRC that if it is capitalist, it is radically different and novel form of it, for good and for ill. And at any rate, the PRC—the Party-state and those who take it seriously—sees itself as being socialist or socialistic. One needs to reckon with this claim and its truth effects and even validity before simply agreeing or disagreeing with it on principle.
- 40.
Lin Chun, China and Global Capitalism, 73. See the entire chapter here for more.
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Vukovich, D.F. (2019). Wukan!: Democracy, Illiberalism, and Their Vicissitudes. In: Illiberal China. China in Transformation. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0541-2_5
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