In retrospect one of the great ironies of the protests that started in Hong Kong in June 2019--one that led to almost a year of intense public demonstrations of the development of a distinctive and self-aware political culture in Hong Kong after 1997 which demonstrators thought worth defending at great cost--might well have been that it signaled the start of the end of that 50 year period of autonomy to be enjoyed on the basis of an international pact which runs its course in 2047.
The protests of 2019 did much to shed light on the character of what had emerged as political culture--and the idealized aspirations of its fiercest adherents--of an autonomous Hong Kong under One Country Two Systems. This represents, in a away, the apotheosis of the "Two Systems" part of the international framework for the governance of Hong Kong. This part of the equation was, at least form the perspective of 1997, to have an international character, and to be based on the primacy of autonomous development subject to a limited embedding of the political cultures of the state asserting ultimate (but until 2047) not entirely exclusive sovereignty. Its principle character was to gve great weight to the "Two Systems" part of the equation and to read the "One Country" part as residual and remote.
At the same time, the protests forced Chinese officials to confront the very same questions of the character of the political culture of Hong Kong, and its place within the greater Pearl River area and China generally from the idealized perspective of the Marxist-Leninist and national political-economic model of the Chinese state. That, in turn, represented the need to refine the "One Country" part of the equation in the context of a dynamically evolving New Era theory for the overall governance of the nation under the guidance of the Chinese Communist Party. This part of the equation, at least from the perspective of 2047, to have an overwhelmingly national character, and to be based on the primacy of the collective development of the state an an coherent and integrated whole, subject to a limited (and decreasing) toleration for differences in political cultures that must, in any case, not impede national goals and direction. This approach required the "Two Systems" part of the equation to be read within and under the primary structure of the "One Country" principle.
The two positions produced a contradiction that required resolution. This is contradiction in the Maoist sense (Mao Zedong,
On Contradiction (1937) (
矛盾论)). The formal answer provided by the international agreements around which transfer was effectuated signaled that time was to be the ultimate means of resolving the contradiction. Specifically, 2047 was to end the period of moving from U.K. to national integration, and potentially, the autonomous status of Hong Kong, but as a matter wholly within the discretion of national authorities. This produces a number of discursive tropes that have dominated the press coverage. The "One Country" camp would necessarily see in international engagement a foreign interference. The "black hand" perspective remains strong among the "One Country" camp (
Pro-democracy camp accused of having CIA backing;
US’ Hong Kong democracy act slanders China to a level close to madness, Foreign Minister Wang Yi says). For the "Two Systems" camp, on the other hand, foreign interference (at least before 2047) is turned around, and the object of the foreign is China itself (e.g.,
Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmakers bash China’s new national security law proposal). The issue of the foreign, then, becomes an ironic marker o the contradiction posed within the alignment of One Country and Two Systems within the parameters of the current strategic discourse.
The 2019 protests, though, brought out into the open what had been simmering under the surface--the realization by both the "Two Systems" and the "One Country" camps that the time was coming perilously close for political culture altering steps to be taken in anticipation of 2047. In this sense the protests represented, in some respects, the opening gambit of a series of final "negotiations" around which the post 2047 autonomy of Hong Kong would be crafted. The time chosen was serendipitous in the sense that it was not clear that in the mutual provocations of both camps from some years previous the Extradition Law would provide the signal to more aggressive negotiation tho¡rough mass mobilization. It was clear, though, that such a step would have to be taken during a time when the international character of the status of Hong Kong was still strong enough to induce foreign state stakeholders (and the international community) a space for participation in the negotiations. For the "Two State" camp, that required privileging the 1997 sensibility of Hong Kong as a n internationalized space (at least to some extent); for the "One Country" camp, that produced a necessary counter-thrust that would seek to both privilege and accelerate the conditions of national control anticipated in 2047.
The strategies, of course, augmented the contradictions inherent in the temporary status quo of Hong Kong. And it was meant to. On the one hand it provided a last chance to modify or reinterpret the international agreement before that possibility was foreclosed by the passage of time. It was meant to welcome, and indeed, create incentives for foreign intervention precisely because the international agreement provided a formal cover for such action in law (if interpreted "correctly"). On the other hand, it provided what appeared to be a challenge for the anticipated changes for 2047 and a potential extension of this sovereignty managing condition for Hing Kong that was made politically impossible in China. To counter that thrust, the only logical counter thrust would have to be to accelerate the arrival of 2047 by recasting the international instrument as legally insufficient (and thus the international interventions as foreign interference), and to unveil more quickly and transparently the planning for Hong Kong from the time its autonomous status would become a matter of grace.
The COVID-19 pandemic provided the space within which the relative positions of both camps were deeply affected. Pandemic effectively made mass mobilization dangerous in ways that could not be overcome by protest leaders. At the same time the quick triumph of Mainland authorities over the COVID-19, at least enough to start a return to full operation, gave the "One Country" camp its chance to move swiftly during this window provided by the virus. And so they have. Even so, the "One Country" camp appears to have been somewhat cautious. Its current proposal is bound up in a "Security Law" whose breadth might be theoretically elastic (and less so as one comes closer to 2047) but which might be initially drafted benignly enough to further erode the power base of the "Two Systems" camp both within and beyond Hong Kong.
Prudence might also be necessary because Hong Kong has become another battlefront in a much more important conflict between the two emerging global imperial systems--the United States and China. That involves not just the re-ordering of global trade relations, the de-coupling of the two economies, and their battle to control international governance space (or divide it between them with the Europeans as the mediators). It also evidences substantial traps, for example in the form of projections of US global power (exercised through the instruments of economic activity control) respecting the Xinjiang Autonomous Region), and in the projection of Chinese power through strategic investment and resource control (as well as in contests for control of the mechanisms for global finance).
Within this analytical space, the likely actions of all participants become clearer. The constraints to action and counter action become clearer as well. In the process China will be required to mire clearly develop the "One Country Two Systems" principles, but one already sees how that will involve at a minimum the primacy of "One Country" and the necessary role of the CPC in guiding the future course of the exercise of autonomy within its ideological framework, the context of which has been made quite clear over the last several years. For the "Two System" camps (both within Hing Kong and among international actors) it will require a reassessment of what may be possible to preserve within an overall framework in which the idealized autonomy of the 2019 protests will be unattainable. That, in turn, will require careful negotiation, but whether the negotiation will be undertaken on the street or elsewhere remains to be seen. For other states,the international law wedge that the status of Hong Kong provided will likely shrink (for the Europeans) and grow wider (for the Americans and perhaps Australia). Hong Kong, like the pandemic, and like the situation in the other autonomous regions (and along the Belt and Road) provides a critically important space within which the US can, like the Chinese, also define and defend their own ideology, their status as a first tier power, and the process of decoupling and reordering the global system of economy, society, and culture. But it will also put greater pressure on international actors to choose sides.
The long road to 2047 has just gotten shorter, even as the distance between ideologically ordered political-economic systems has widened. In the process of rationalizing both expect a substantial amount of collateral damage--to individuals, institutions, relations, and the way things are understood and valued. That is to a large extent inevitable, even if the pacing of events was not. In the end 2047 will come; if it has not already announced its imminent appearance. It is time now to see and understand, from the "One Country" position, how the "Two Systems" principle can be more rationally aligned with New Era ideology and the leadership of both state and CPC. But it is not yet 2047. Hong Kong remains firmly a creature of international agreement
within China. Until 2047. Until 2047, then, the international community has will also push the central contradiction of "One Country Two Systems" toward resolution in accordance with its own dialectical vectors--one that will continue to invert Chinese Marxist-Leninist principles to advance those of its own politics-economic model ("Two Systems" within "One Country"--this is the extraterritorialization of the European Union model of "United in Diversity", see
here). And to do that, sovereignty, central to the Chinese position, is not central.
Whatever the development, one thing remains quite clear--at least through 2047 China will scrupulously adhere to its international obligations. But it will do it on its own terms. That is the essence of
全国人民代表大会关于建立健全香港特别行政区维护国家安全的法律制度和执行机制的决定（草案）》("National
People's Congress on the Establishment and Improvement of the Hong Kong
Special Administrative Region to Maintain National Security") and the anticipated actions of the NCP Standing Committee to come.
That China is marching at a faster pace toward 2047 and its vision for Hong Kong going forward does not mean the end of "One Country, Two Systems." What it does mean, at least form the actions of the NCP and the symbolic effect of the National Security Law for Hong Kong, is that the driver of the interpretation of that system, its principles and operation, will shift decisively from Hong Kong to Beijing, and it will become far more deeply embedded within the Chinese New Era Marxist Leninist dialectic. The NCP document makes this explicit--that is its great innovation: ""One country" is the premise and basis for the implementation of "two systems". "Two systems" are subordinate and derived from "one country" and unified within "one country". "What had been understood discretely within China and effectively ignored elsewhere, has now become an explicit statement of the fundamental contradiction of the 1997 transfer and its proposed resolution.
To that end, it is likely that from this point on it may be useful to think about the contradiction that is One Country Two Systems as a subs-part of the transitional dialectic from capitalist, through socialist, to communist society (e.g., Mao Zedong,
Dialectical Materialism
Chp 2 ¶6 (1938) ("The philosophies of all reactionary forces are
theories of immobilism. Revolutionary classes and the popular masses
have all perceived the principle of the development of the world, and
consequently advocate transforming society and the world; their
philosophy is dialectical materialism."). Hong Kong will be expected to proceed on that path at its own pace; but proceed it must. The One Country Two Systems model will develop new forms suitable to the New Era of Chinese development What the consequences of that necessary internal movement will be on the contradiction that is the fracturing of global governance between New Era liberal democratic and Marxists world views remains to be seen.
The Chinese National Security Law framework 《
全国人民代表大会关于建立健全香港特别行政区维护国家安全的法律制度和执行机制的决定（草案）》("National People's Congress on the Establishment and Improvement of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to Maintain National Security") (original Chinese along with a crude English translation ) along with the official responses of key outside states follow.
