Hong Kong’s reality reveals the poverty of “progressive realism”

A recent article in the Australian Journal of International Affairs entitled “For a progressive realism: Australian foreign policy in the 21st century” proposed a foreign policy based in what the authors call a “progressive realism.”

Considering myself to be at once progressive as well as relatively in touch with reality, I read the article with interest. I began to have my doubts very early in the reading process, when I encountered the assertion on page three that a progressive foreign policy should seek to “redistribute existing power configurations” producing “reformed global and regional orders” (3). Hmm… what exactly does that mean, I wondered.

When I reached the section on a potential “crisis in the Taiwan Strait” (coded language for China invading Taiwan), I was able to see what this progressive realism looks like in practice. And, let me tell you, it is not pretty.

The authors articulate three potential responses to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan: conflict, deterrence, and negotiation.

Conflict (i.e. responding militarily to an invasion), we are told, has become “part of the right’s approach to China.” Well, if “the right” says we should defend a liberal democracy from being swallowed by an authoritarian empire, I suppose the only progressive stance would be to allow a liberal democracy to be swallowed by an authoritarian empire. Otherwise we might get right-wing cooties!

The second option of deterrence, we are told, must be enacted through non-military measures which would “entail signaling that Australia would not be part of a military response.” How exactly such deterrence might actually deter Beijing at all is a question left notably unanswered by the authors, for understandable reasons.

We are then presented with a third possibility: negotiation. Negotiation involves reaching “some kind of bargain in which the PRC achieves its ambitions while making concessions of its own, such as stepping back from its claims in the East and South China Seas and accepting a regional balance of power that retains a significant US presence” (16). On the next page, we are told that “a logic of redistribution requires giving China a bit more space and the US a little less” (17).

Hmm…. I would have thought that this would be obvious, but perhaps we have reached a point where this needs to be said, for some reason beyond my comprehension: rolling over and allowing China to invade and occupy the independent democratic nation of Taiwan, forcing its people into the failed CCP system, is not actually progressive. Many commentators disappointed with the progressive realism paper have already raised this point.

I would like to add to this conversation by pointing out that such appeasement is also not even remotely realistic. Here’s why: this has been done before!

There is a very obvious precedent for handing over a politically mature and dynamic society to the CCP without consultation with residents, hoping that this move would encourage concessions on the CCP’s part: that society is Hong Kong. And we all know how that worked out.

The Sino-British Joint Declaration transferred Hong Kong from perpetual British sovereignty to Chinese sovereignty. This was done under the rubric of One Country, Two Systems, supported by the Basic Law, ostensibly guaranteeing that Hong Kong’s developed political, legal, social, and economic systems would be allowed to continue to evolve without control or negative impacts from the PRC’s dictatorial model. We all know how that worked out.

Things have changed so drastically, shattering even our worse expectations, that we tend to forget that the handover of Hong Kong to China was supposed to provide a path to the peaceful “resolution” of the “Taiwan question.” According to this logic, the success of One Country, Two Systems in Hong Kong was to shine so radiantly that the Taiwanese people would be convinced that the CCP was a sincere negotiator who could abide by its promises of autonomy and respect for open societies, thereby opening a path to “reunification.” One Country, Two Systems in Hong Kong would then be precisely the type of negotiated concession that allows the PRC to achieve its ambitions while making concessions of its own. We also all know how that worked out!

Rather than convincing the Taiwanese people of the wonders of One Country Two Systems, in reality the accelerating dissolution of Hong Kong’s autonomy, the destruction of the city’s political and legal systems, and the sudden stripping away of longstanding basic freedoms have made the Taiwanese model of a free and democratic nation independent from Chinese control only ever more appealing to an ever greater contingent of Hong Kong residents.

Surveys conducted before the 2019 protests and the 2020 implementation of the preposterous National Security Law show that Chinese identity in the city has actually decreased as the city has been integrated into China, and as many as 40% of young people support Hong Kong’s independence from China: an idea that was largely completely unarticulated just a little over a decade ago.

Yet not only has the PRC model in Hong Kong failed. At a deeper level, the idea of negotiating and making concessions to hand over the lives and rights of millions of people to the CCP, in hopes that Beijing might make concessions, “act nice,” or even just abide by its promises to not simply toss anyone who disagrees with them into jail for life has also revealed its complete and utter emptiness.

This is the reality of Hong Kong today: people who simply want to build a better society are facing potential life sentences for exercising their legally guaranteed rights. Forcing the Taiwanese people into this tragic fate is not progressive. Hoping that Beijing might behave better next time if we make yet another concession is neither realist nor even remotely realistic.

Of what use, then, is this progressive realism for anyone besides the CCP regime, and its notably non-progressive goal of imperialist expansion under an anachronistic myth of racial unity? The short answer: not much.

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To read more about the collapse of One Country, Two Systems in Hong Kong and the growing desire for a Hong Kong nation free from the CCP’s control, check out Two Systems, Two Countries: A Nationalist Guide to Hong Kong: now available on Kindle and Apple Books, and releasing in hard copy April 15th.