李世默：示威者應停手——雨傘革命無關民主

本文作者為春秋發展戰略研究院研究員李世默，英文版於今日（10月6日）刊發於美國《華盛頓郵報》網站，中文版由作者授權觀察者網獨家首發。

媒體鼓吹的“佔中”敍事話語是，香港人對政治不滿，因此要爭取民主、反對北京的暴政。這種説法是錯的。真相是一小撮激進——有些甚至只是天真——的意識形態狂熱分子將合理的民眾實際訴求改頭換面，冒稱爭取香港的自主地位。可以説，“佔中”屬於全球性“廣場治”（Maidancracy，maidan即臭名昭著的基輔獨立廣場，烏克蘭革命誕生地）運動的一部分。如果任由其發展，香港不會有好結果。

冷戰終結後，“廣場治”運動層出不窮。從前蘇聯到東南亞，從阿拉伯到烏克蘭，“廣場治”運動影響了數以億計的民眾。開羅解放廣場、基輔獨立廣場和香港的“廣場治”具有某種共同特點。首先，民眾都對國家現狀和未來走向有所不滿。其次，實際參與者大多出於善意，關切自身處境和社會福祉。但這種運動通常都是由抱有強烈意識形態企圖心的政治活動家所領導。結果，運動宗旨變成了推翻政府甚至整個政治體制。第三，媒體搖旗吶喊，煽風點火，最終往往如其所願，局勢惡化不可收拾。第四，“民主”是這些人共同打着的旗幟。

這些運動一旦遭到暴力鎮壓，往往會失敗，釀成流血慘劇（敍利亞即是一例）。在少數成功例子裏，隨之而來的也是滿目瘡痍、國破家亡（想想烏克蘭，十餘年來的不斷顏色革命造成領土分裂，國將不國）。有些國家的“廣場治”運動走上了惡性循環：湧向廣場、推翻一個政府，然後再回到廣場推翻下一個政府（埃及即是一例）。同時，老百姓經受着經濟癱瘓、政治動盪甚至暴力威脅。

香港也出現了苗頭。數萬名抗議者霸佔了這個世界金融中心的核心區域，堅持要按照他們設想的方式選舉特首。他們甚至為現任特首梁振英設定了下台日期。更令人擔憂的是，抗議者們與不滿生活遭到打擾、生計受影響的居民發生了零星的暴力衝突。

不過，運動領頭人傳達的信息並不合理。因為他們所想象的香港民主目標和手段都是錯的。事實上，當下香港人獲得了前所未有的政治參與度。1997年以前，香港長達155年時間都是英國殖民地。28任港督都是由倫敦方面欽點，根本不考慮香港人的意見。末任港督彭定康現在自詡為民主旗手，實乃徹頭徹尾的虛偽之士。

中國恢復行使主權以後，香港才具備公眾參與政治治理的框架。如今，半數立法會議員由民眾直選，另一半則是所謂“功能界別”。1200名香港人組成的委員會從香港居民當中選出特首。

北京方面還制定了2017年特首普選的方案，候選人由提名委員會推舉——後者皆由香港居民組成。當下動亂的近因是抗議者要求公眾直接推舉候選人。

外因也很重要：社會上的不滿情緒為“佔中”提供了土壤，而其根源和臆想的北京“律令”毫無干係。香港正在經歷經濟衰退和艱難的社會轉型期。隨着內地市場經濟開放度提高，香港基本喪失中國唯一口岸的地位。曾經提供大量就業崗位的香港製造業全都轉移至勞動力更加便宜的地區。全球化進程和中國經濟崛起提升了香港的金融中心地位，但經濟上的好處大多流向了地產商、金融中間商和資本操縱者。收入中位數增長停滯甚至開始下降，而生活成本，尤其是住房成本，卻逐年上漲。香港貧富差距之大，位居世界前列。

真實數據所反映的民眾心態與示威活動積極分子所描述的截然相反。香港大學“民意研究計劃”過去若干年的民調錶明，80%以上的香港人最關心的議題是民生和經濟問題，而關心政治議題的人羣比例基本上很難超過兩位數。

今年夏天“佔中”造勢之時，組織者共收集到80萬支持票。兩個月時間不到，反“佔中”運動收集到130萬支持票。

組織者呼籲發動“佔中”已經一年之久。上述香港大學民調機構自2013年4月以來針對“佔中”已經做過5次民意測驗，幾乎每次民調都有逾半數受訪者明確反對“佔中”（只有一次例外），而支持“佔中”的比例只有個位數。

香港面臨的經濟問題對任何一個政府來説都是極大挑戰。雪上加霜的是，有人煞有介事地將一切責任歸咎於北京方面。抗議運動把矛頭錯誤地指向對北京方面的擔憂，由此，“廣場治”的意識形態掩蓋了香港問題的真正根源和出路。

但是，香港的未來並沒有像街頭顯現的那樣灰暗。香港與埃及、烏克蘭有着本質上的不同。香港經濟發展總體繁榮。法治並未中斷。資源豐富，分配好了足以解決結構性問題。大部分香港人都希望解決實際問題，而不是沉溺於意識形態之爭。最重要的是，香港還是經濟繁榮、政治穩定的中國的一部分。正如英國學者馬丁•雅克在《衞報》撰文：大陸是香港的未來而非敵人。

香港當下局勢容不得半點鬆懈。如果任何一方誤致局勢升級，都會產生不幸後果。“廣場治”再走更遠會是毀滅性的。當地社會條件本不至於招致如此災難。香港需要實幹者，而非革命者。

（翻頁見華盛頓郵報英文版）

The umbrella revolution won’t give Hong Kong democracy. Protesters should stop calling for it.

This is about inequality, not politics, so democracy can’t fix the problem.

By Eric X. Li October 6 at 1:01 AM

HONG KONG — The prevailing media narrative about the Hong Kong protest — namely that the citizens are politically dissatisfied and are fighting for democracy against the tyranny of Beijing — is false. What’s actually happening is this: A fringe of radical (or sometimes, more charitably, merely naive) ideologues are recasting the real and legitimate economic grievances of people here as a fight about Hong Kong’s autonomy. The movement is part of a global trend you might call maidancracy (rule of the square, from the infamous Maidan in central Kiev where the Ukrainian protests began). If carried out to its full extent, it will not end well for Hong Kong.

Maidancracy is an increasingly common post-Cold-War phenomenon. From the former Soviet Union to Southeast Asia, from the Arab world to Ukraine, it has affected the lives and futures of hundreds of millions of people. Hong Kong’s iteration shares certain characteristics with the ones in Cairo and Kiev: First, there is general popular discontent over the prevailing state of affairs and the region’s probable future. Second, while the foot soldiers are largely well-intentioned people with genuine concerns for their own welfare and that of the Hong Kong society, they are led by activists with a strong ideological agenda. As a result, their aim becomes the overthrow of the government or sometimes the entire political system. Third, the press relentlessly cheers them on and thereby amplifies the movement and turns it into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Fourth, democracy is always the banner.

These movements generally fail when they are put down violently, with tragic loss of life (think of Syria). In the rare cases in which they succeed, they lead to long periods of suffering and destruction (think of Ukraine, where more than a decade of continuous color revolutions have torn the country apart and now threaten the nation’s very survival). Some maidan movements seem to run on a perpetual cycle: get on the square to remove a government, only to return to the square to remove the next one (think of Egypt). In the meantime, paralysis, chaos and even violence reign.

Those trends have already developed in Hong Kong. Tens of thousands of protesters are occupying the central city district of one of the world’s largest financial centers demanding a particular method for electing the city’s future chief executives. They even set a deadline for the current chief executive, Leung Chun-ying, to resign, or else. (In accord with the typical maidan arc, violent skirmishes have begun between protesters and residents frustrated by the inconvenience and fearful of long-term threats to their livelihoods.)

But the protest message, as described by the loudest activists, is problematic, because its central theme of democracy for Hong Kong is all wrong. The degree of political participation in Hong Kong is actually at its highest in history. Before 1997, Hong Kong was a British colony for 155 years, during which it was ruled by 28 governors — all of them directly appointed by London. For Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong, to now brand himself as the champion of democracy is hypocrisy of the highest order.

Only after the return of sovereignty to China 17 years ago did Hong Kong gain real public participation in governance. Today, half of the legislature is directly elected by the public and the other half by what are called functional constituencies. The chief executive, a native Hong Konger, is selected by a committee of 1,200 other Hong Kongers.

Further, Beijing has now devised a plan for voters to elect the next chief executive directly, rather than by committee, in 2017 among candidates fielded by a nominating committee — also made up of Hong Kongers. The proximate cause for today’s upheaval is the protesters’ demand for direct public nomination of candidates, too.

But the context matters: General discontent has provided fertile soil for this movement, and the sources of that dissatisfaction have nothing to do with imaginary diktats from Beijing. Hong Kong is going through a tough period of economic and social dislocation. Its unique advantage as the only port into and out of China has largely disappeared as the mainland’s own market economy scales up. Its manufacturing base, which provided ample employment, has been moved to cheaper locations. Globalization and the expanding Chinese economy have elevated the city’s position as an international financial center, but the economic benefits have mainly accrued to landowners and those who are engaged in financial intermediation and deployment of capital. Median income has been stagnant and is dropping, but costs of living, especially housing, have been rising. The wealth gap is among the highest in the world.

Empirical data demonstrates the nature of public discontent, and it is fundamentally different from what is being portrayed by the protesting activists. Over the past several years, polling conducted by the Public Opinion Program at the University of Hong Kong has consistently shown that well over 80 percent of Hong Kongers’ top concerns are livelihood and economic issues, with those who are concerned with political problems in the low double digits at the most.

When the Occupy Central movement was gathering steam over the summer, the protesters garnered 800,000 votes in an unofficial poll supporting the movement. Yet less than two months later an anti-Occupy campaign collected 1.3 million signatures (from Hong Kong’s 7 million population) opposing the movement. The same University of Hong Kong program has conducted five public opinion surveys since April 2013, when protesters first began to create the movement. All but one showed that more than half of Hong Kongers opposed it, and support was in the low double digits.

Hong Kong’s economic issues are daunting challenges for any government. But they have been made even more difficult by protesters attempting, successfully it seems, to manufacture a narrative that Beijing is the cause of Hong Kong’s troubles. By misdirecting the frustration and anxiety of Hong Kongers to Beijing, the maidancracy ideology has overtaken rational discourse about the root causes of Hong Kong’s problems and their solutions.

Given all this, the future of Hong Kong is not nearly as bleak as it looks on the streets at the moment. Hong Kong is fundamentally different from the likes of Egypt and Ukraine. The economy is largely prosperous. Rule of law still prevails. Resources are abundant and can be directed and allocated in the right ways to address the structural challenges. The vast majority of Hong Kongers want to solve problems and are not ideological. And most of all, Hong Kong remains an integral part of an economically vibrant and politically stable China. As Martin Jacques wrote in Britain’s Guardian newspaper, “China is Hong Kong’s future – not its enemy.”

At the moment, the situation is tense. If either side makes the mistake of escalating, we know that maidancracy can be destructive. Hong Kong’s current conditions do not call for such destruction. Let calm return to the City by the Harbor. Hong Kong needs problem solvers, not revolutionaries.