Mediation in Hong Kong !

It is very obvious that the unrest in Hong Kong is reaching a critical stage.  The city has been paralysed for the past seventeen weeks as raging mobs have roamed the streets and police have countered with water cannon and tear gas.  This public protest has now reached the stage where live rounds have been fired and public damage has been inflicted on 82 of the city's 94 railway stations. The economic health of the city of Hong Kong is now in question.

This protest is reaching a climax at a critical time frame.  Mainland China is celebrating the seventieth anniversary of its Communist party coming to power in a civil war with the Nationalist government.  That is a showcase of the rise of China in world affairs and the elevation of its population from agrarian poverty to the status of a middle class that is now the world's most numerous overseas travellers.   It is a conundrum that confounds the west.   The tyrannical rule of Communist ideology in a country with a fast expanding capitalist economy.

In 1997 that same Communist government crushed a democracy movement in its own capital when it sent tanks and soldiers into Tiananmen square and gunned down protesting students.   The People's Liberation army is massed on the border with Hong Kong and there has been the expectation that leader Xi Jinping will eventually send in the troops when his patience expires.

China is believed to have adopted the " long game " strategy.  Students started the unrest over a bill instigated by Beijing that would allow arrested Hong Kong residents to be moved to mainland China for trial.  Chinese courts are notorious for obeying the wishes of the government and the verdicts return a ninety-eight percent ratio of " guilty ".   That law did not proceed and Hong Kong residents face trial in their own courts and under the laws left behind by the former British rule.

Up to half the population of Hong Kong have taken part in these demonstrations and Xi Jinping shrewdly knows that eventually they need to attend to earning their own living.   They are obviously angering the residents who are not part of the protest and this disorder is seriously affecting trade within the city.  There is hope that enthusiasm will wane and the protest will attract fewer numbers, until it eventually collapses.

The main impetus has come from students and one of the features of this protest has been the wearing of face masks.  The protesters are aware of the huge advances in face recognition technology and as the protest is being photographed they fear future retribution for their involvement.   The Beijing appointed chief executive, Carrie Lam has now invoked an emergency law that makes face covering illegal.  It gives the police the power to demand the removal of face masks with a six month prison penalty applying for disobedience.

The " Umbrella Movement " has certainly demonstrated the power it commands to bring people into the streets but all disputes reach settlement by way of compromise.  Now might be a very wise time to invite dialogue between Beijing and the protest movement, under the auspices of the United Nations to work out a settlement.  Such a settlement would then be monitored by the world body to ensure that both sides hold to the terms reached.

That would be a far better solution that intervention by the P.L.A.  !