Time
was when flying to Hong Kong was a really big thrill – or maybe scare would be
a better term. Its old airport, Kai Tak, was right in the middle of
bustling downtown Hong Kong. Flying into Kai Tak used up 11 of one’s 12
lives.
The
wide-bodied jumbo aircraft would drop down into a long fjord that was usually
shrouded in fog or mist. The nervous passenger would see nothing but
cloud. Suddenly, the aircraft would break out of the thick cloud cover
right over the airport.
To the left and right were
apartment buildings festooned with drying laundry at the same height as one’s
plane. The big 747 airliner landed with a huge thud and screaming tires
right in front of another bunch of apartment buildings.
Even
for veteran air travelers like myself, this was a heart-stopping
experience. Amazingly, I recall only one crash at Kai Tak, which we used
to call ‘Suicide Airport.’ Still, it was like landing a jumbo-jet on New
York’s Park Avenue. Not for the faint of heart.
In
1998, Kai Tak was closed and replaced by the modern, spacious Chek Lap Kok,
better known as Hong Kong International. It quickly became one of Asia’s
principal aviation hubs.
This
week, Hong Kong airport was besieged and shut down by thousands of young local
demonstrators protesting China’s attempt to impose a new extradition law on
Hong Kong that would allow Beijing to arrest Hong Kong residents for
‘anti-state’ activities. The deal that Hong Kong’s former colonial
Britain signed with China calls for ‘two-states, one nation,’ with considerable
independence for the former island colony.
But
anyone who thinks China’s iron-fisted rulers will allow a scrap of paper to
limit their influence over Hong Kong is dead wrong. For them, Hong Kong
is as much a part of China as Shanghai. So, too, is Taiwan.
The
massive rioting in Hong Kong earlier this week set off alarm bells in Beijing,
which runs an Orwellian police state on the mainland. China’s hardline
leaders rightly fear that the fracas in Hong Kong could incite other uprisings
across China. Everyone remembers the long, bloody Cultural Revolution of
the 1970’s with its rampaging Red Guards.
Perhaps
more important, Chinese leaders study their nation’s history and draw lessons
from it, unlike America’s history-free politicians. For the Americans,
history is what was on Fox TV the week before.
What Beijing really fears is
another Taiping Rebellion. A nobody named Hong Xiuqan proclaimed himself
the brother of Jesus and raised a vast peasant army to overthrow the ruling
Manchu dynasty in Beijing. Brutal civil war raged from 1850-1864 in which
up to 100 million are believed to have been killed or died of famine.
If
this sounds completely crazy, think of all the Republican sycophants that call
President Trump the reincarnation of the ancient Hebrew Queen Esther or a
‘Christian warrior.’ Bizarre behavior and beliefs are universal.
China
has warned the rioting Hong Kong students to cease their protests or face
intervention by Beijing’s tough paramilitary police, which backs up the regular
People’s Army. Chinese armed police and soldiers are massing just across
the border in Shenzhen, a mere taxi ride from downtown Hong Kong.
If the Hong Kong students are
not wise, they risk winding up in China’s penal camps, the ‘laogai.’
Large numbers of Muslim Uighurs from Xinjiang have been locked away in
China’s western laogai.
The airport riots now appear over but
continue in Hong Kong’s streets. If the People’s Police or Liberation
Army do intervene in Hong Kong to impose China’s iron hand, they could spark
another Tiananmen Square bloodbath. But once Beijing’s forces impose
martial law on Hong Kong its days of autonomy will be over.
The type of repression China imposed on
Tibet and Muslim regions could be repeated in Hong Kong. There is
absolutely nothing any of the world’s powers can do about it. China will
then turn its attention to ‘renegade province’ Taiwan. Western
politicians can huff and puff all they like but they are powerless to change
the tide of events in Hong Kong.
Eric S.
Margolis [send him
mail] is the author of War at the Top of the World and the new
book, American Raj: Liberation or Domination?: Resolving the
Conflict Between the West and the Muslim World. See his website.
Copyright © 2019 Eric Margolis