Hong Kong’s ‘silent majority’ has spoken out but pro-democracy supporters must push forward carefully

The local election results are a significant symbolic victory against Beijing but it is merely a step on the road to full democratic reforms

The people of Hong Kong have, in the most fitting manner, busted the myth that the pro-democracy demonstrations of recent months have been the work of some isolated extremist unrepresentative minority. The results of the local elections, in which the pro-democracy candidates made stunning advances, give the lie to chief executive Carrie Lam’s claim that the unrest was disapproved of by the “silent majority” of Hong Kong’s citizens.

Although the representatives elected to the local councils have little political power, their voters represent something symbolic, a standing indictment to the central authorities in Beijing. The democratic and judicial structures left behind by the British when colonial administration ended in 1997 were relatively weak overall, but they are protected by international treaty until 2047, a fact that the Communist Party leadership would like to forget.

The people of Hong Kong have three things on their side. First, a clear democratic mandate for their demands. Second, the strength of their own dedication to that cause. Third, the backing of the UK and, rather more importantly, the support of the whole international community via the United Nations, which has accepted the guarantees in the Sino-British Joint Declaration.

Still, none of that is much use against armed brigades of the People’s Liberation Army ready and willing to enforce Beijing’s will and put down the demonstrations. The world watches, and perhaps only the appalling memory of the Tiananmen Square massacres in 1989 has restrained China from unleashing another bloodbath on its own citizens.

The pro-democracy forces in Hong Kong seem sometimes to be unaware of the progress and achievements they have exacted – unprecedented in the 70-year history of the People’s Republic. China at first shelved and then completely dropped the proposed extradition law that sparked the marches. Now Ms Lam has stated that she is ready to “listen humbly” to the voice of the people. At least superficially there is some attempt at reconciliation.

There is no excuse for a totalitarian government to put down mostly peaceful protests by force, under any circumstances, and no one needs to thank the Chinese government for not shooting its own people. Yet it is also true that some elements in the protest movement have resorted to violence, if only in self-defence. The purity and moral force of their case is undermined every time they use violence and they merely gift the authorities an added excuse to put down the protests in the name of “restoring order”. The protesters should not fall into this trap.

Nor should they make their public demands so unrealistic that they give President Xi Jinping and the politburo no alternative but to reject them. In securing long-term democratic change in Hong Kong and China, as elsewhere, flexibility in strategy and tactics is wise. It should be clear that there is in Hong King the possibility of democratic outcry with elections in which candidates hostile to the central government can express themselves up to a point, despite elements of censorship and the ominous presence of armed forces.

The pro-democracy protesters should not go home from the streets simply because the authorities would find it convenient for them to do so. They should do so if it advances their cause – and maintain a strictly non-violent approach, pacing their attempts to secure change and reform. They should realise better than most China’s bloody history so far as unrest is concerned, and how paranoid the central leadership is about the unity of the nation.

That central fear of fracturing the state is a defining, founding, principle of Mao’s China which is also behind the imprisonment of Uighur Muslims and their forced assimilation by the Communist Party. It is possible to challenge Mr Xi, as we have seen, and to win important interim concessions. He is, though, not going to abandon the Communist Party’s monopoly on power. But a push for all-out western-style democracy within weeks, for the students and workers on the streets of Hong Kong, is a risk too far for the time being.