East Asia News & Politics Thread: China, South Korea, Japan...

s tens of thousands of activists continue to defy the authorities in Hong Kong by occupying entire city blocs in the heart of the city, and with weekly reports of escalating violence in restive Xinjiang, the central government in Beijing seems to be losing its grip on what the Chinese regard as the “peripheries.” Recent comments by President Xi Jinping about yet another piece in China’s puzzle of instability—Taiwan—suggest that the leadership may be panicking.

Before we proceed, it’s important to point out that the two territories and Taiwan are different issues altogether: The first two are politically part of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) while Taiwan is a self-ruled entity operating under its own set of rules and constitution, that of the Republic of China (ROC). Furthermore, Taiwan is democratic and was never part of the PRC, whereas Hong Kong was “returned” to the PRC in 1997 and can only aspire to a democratic system, a situation that is at the heart of the current impasse in the former British colony, while Xinjiang is ruled with a mix of intermarriage, displacement, and repressive policies under a veneer of economic development and “ethnic harmony.”

Still, fundamental differences notwithstanding, Beijing has proposed—imposed, rather—a one-size-fits-all solution for Hong Kong and Taiwan, known as the “one country, two systems,” or 1C2S, model. Despite the model showing cracks in the one territory where it has been applied, as evidence by Hong Kong’s angry response to China’s White Paper on 1C2S in June, Beijing is adamant that it is equally viable as an instrument by which to bring about the “re-unification of China,” or, to put in terms that better reflect reality, the annexation of Taiwan.

The 1C2S formula has been implicit for years as relations across the Taiwan Strait ebbed and flowed. Nevertheless, the Chinese leadership had until recently been cunning enough to know that stating this outright would be counterproductive, aware that 1C2S had very little appeal among Taiwan’s 23 million people, even those who tend to vote for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), a party that generally identifies more and favors closer relations with China. Consequently, while 1C2S remained a constant for China, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in its engagement with its counterparts in Taiwan adopted a seemingly more conciliatory position and agreed to negotiate under the so-called “1992 consensus,” whereby both sides agreed there is “one China,” but differed on its interpretation. The creative formula was vague enough to allow for the substantial rapprochement that has occurred between Taipei and Beijing since the election of President Ma Ying-jeou of the KMT in 2008.

Beyond serving as a platform for dialogue, the 1992 consensus was good enough for the Chinese, as it succeeded in halting what it feared most—a gradual slide in Taiwan towards de jure independence. For all his faults, Chinese president Hu Jintao, Mr. Xi’s predecessor, showed patience on the question of Taiwan. As long as things moved in the “right” direction—and there is no doubt that the 20 or so agreements signed between the two sides since 2008, added to the explosion in cross-strait tourism and exchanges, was the “right” direction insofar as Beijing is concerned—Hu adopted a “go slow” approach to unification, which largely succeeded in drawing Taiwan ever closer into its orbit without unduly alarming the Taiwanese population.

It was only a matter of time before this well-calibrated balancing act by Beijing would come undone after Xi replaced Hu. There were plenty of warning signs, starting with China’s increasingly assertive behavior in the East and South China Seas and its more nationalistic, if not belligerent, tone on Sino-U.S. relations. Xi, who wasted little time ridding himself of his political opponents to arguably become the most powerful and ideological Chinese leader since Mao Zedong, is an impatient man. Consequently, whereas Hu was content with neutralizing Taiwan, Xi seems intent on dealing with the problem once and for all. And developments in Hong Kong, added to the Sunflower Movement’s occupation of Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan earlier this year—whose impact was not, despite Mr. Ma’s claims, short lived—appear to be fueling that impatience by raising the specter of the permanent “separation” of Taiwan from the “mainland.”

To put it simply, Xi seems to have run out of patience not only with Taiwan, but with President Ma’s KMT as well. Despite the rapprochement that has occurred under Ma since 2008, Beijing hasn’t been able to initiate overtly political talks about Taiwan’s future, which was the plan all along. With fifteen months left to his second and last term in office, Ma has probably delivered as much as he can to Beijing. His party is divided, Ma’s image has been severely hurt by the Sunflower, and whoever aspires to filling his seat in 2016 will, given electoral pressures, be compelled to adopt a more centrist position, which by default means imposing more brakes on cross-strait dialogue (at least during campaigning).

A Chinese government that understands the tremendous pressures facing Ma and the KMT at the moment would take a step back and wait for future opportunities. Inexplicably, Xi has done the opposite.

The 1997 Asian Financial Crisis (known locally as the “IMF Crisis”) hit South Korea particularly hard. In exchange for an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout package, South Korea implemented structural adjustment policies. One such adjustment, made to the Labor Standards Act, introduced systems for rationalization at Korea’s biggest firms. The Act on the Protection, Etc., of Dispatched Workers was also implemented; this bill recognized the right of employers to hire temporary workers on short-term contracts. In short, employees became dispensable and employment uncertain. “Lifetime employment,” a short-lived phenomenon in the era of South Korean democracy, was over. The effects are now making themselves seen.

Earlier this week, Hankyoreh ran an article entitled “More than 2 million in S. Korea living as subcontractor workers.” The article can be read as a condensed history of post-1997 labor relations, or how the IMF crisis restructured South Korean society. The author notes that despite a full recovery from the crisis by 2003-2004, the restructuring of labor relations has generated a new problem. While businesses recovered lost capital, the issue of irregular employment has remained and, in many ways, been institutionalized.

The author of the Hankyoreh article doesn’t mention it, but what happened in South Korea in the late 1990s is not unique to Korea. The rise of “nonstandard work” is happening all across the world. Indeed, sociologist Gøsta Esping-Andersen, best known for his book The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, has identified the increase of part-time and temporary work as a primary trend in post-industrial societies.

Global context and timing is important, because when something happens in world-history time tends to effect how it happens. For example, the timing of South Korea’s industrialization (“late” in historical time) meant that it needn’t worry as much about creation or innovation, and could instead focus its attention on “learning” or adopting existing technologies. This is a main contribution of Alice Amsden’s highly regarded study of South Korea’s industrialization, Asia’s Next Giant: South Korea and Late Industrialization.

The context and timing of Korea’s labor problem is not particularly good. The time in world history for welfare state expansion seems to have passed. When the rest of the developed world was expanding social safety nets and other welfare state policies, South Korea had only just hit its industrialization stride. Now, in South Korea’s post-industrial period, where employment uncertainty is on the rise and welfare protection needed, the global trend is towards retrenchment, not expansion, of social safety nets.

If there is one thing South Korea is known for, it is its interconnectedness to and dependence on global capitalism and the ideas that underpin it. As goes the world, so goes South Korea. It wasn’t just the fact that long-time opposition candidate and man-of-the-people Kim Dae-jung presided over the implementation of the IMF-backed adjustments; South Korea began its drift towards neo-liberalism many years before then. It began in the 1980s, when Korea was sending its bureaucratic elites to the United States for economic training; the 1980s just so happened to be the high point for neoliberal thought. It’s no coincidence, note Chang Ha-joon and Peter Evans, that the bureaucrats who were trained in the United States later dismantled their own bureaucracy (the Economic Planning Bureau). But it is ironic.

Of course, it needn’t be this way. In fact, political scientist Joseph Wong found in his comparative study of Taiwanese and South Korean health care systems that the “politics of democratic transition” lead to welfare state expansion in the immediate post-transition periods. Retrenchment isn’t inevitable. Governments must simply be incentivized to expand social policies — and willing to pay for it (i.e, raise taxes).

Macau’s people first showed signs of a political awakening of its own in May 2014, when mass rallies forced the region’s chief executive to forfeit a controversial bill. The measure would have provided extravagant retirement packages for top officials and given the serving Macau chief executive immunity from criminal charges. In response, as many as 20,000 of Macau’s half a million citizens surrounded the territory’s legislature and demanded that the idea be scrapped, forcing Chief Executive Dr. Fernando Chui Sai On to heed their call. Many took time off from work to participate, realizing for the first time that political activism can lead to improved governance. As casino worker Ada Pun explained, before Macau’s people saw their Hong Kong counterparts as troublesome, “But this time, the Macau government is testing our bottom line … and we finally realised we could make a change if we stood united.” Rally organizer Sulu Sou Ka-hou called the abandonment of the unpopular bill a victory, but maintained that, “at the end of the day, the problem today stems from the undemocratic political system we have.”

The political influence of Hong Kong is also apparent. The city’s ongoing political unrest seems to have emboldened many Macau residents to take up the mantle of universal suffrage as well. This June, after Beijing dismissed as “illegal” Hong Kong’s unofficial referendum on democracy, which turned out 800,000 voters, Macau held its own unofficial referendum on the same question. This took place even as Macau’s own leader was “reelected” by the territory’s pro-Beijing election committee in a one-horse race. Of the nearly 9,000 people who cast their ballot, 89 percent cast a vote of no confidence in their chief executive, and 95 percent said they would prefer their leadership to be chosen through direct elections.

As it happens, this period of dissatisfaction with the political system is overlapping with a period of labor empowerment. On October 3, hundreds of dealers from MGM’s flagship casino went on strike to demand better wages and benefits, following a summer trend of large-scale labor demonstrations. A Morgan Stanley report projects continued labor shortages and increased casino employee bargaining power for several years to come, which may mean increased labor activism during this time. All of this coincides with ongoing political turbulence before Hong Kong’s chief executive election in 2017, which is already having a strong impact on Macau’s political consciousness.

This fusion of drivers over an extended period of time may very well create favorable conditions for massive political demonstrations, supported by Macau labor. It is important to remember that in China, workers have supported calls for democracy before. Tiananmen Square in 1989 was a perfect example of labor marching in support of political rights. In Hong Kong’s current protests, as many as 10,000 workers from all labor sectors have shown solidarity with the Occupy Central movement, adding further legitimacy to their political cause. The workers of Macau may eventually feel inspired to do the same as they witness their Hong Kong compatriots turning out by the thousands to support political freedoms.

For now, the people of Macau will likely look on from afar as the political future of Hong Kong plays out. Even so, Beijing and the world should not simply dismiss Macau’s people as apolitical in orientation, as they soon may gamble that the time to try their luck at democracy has arrived.