Hong Kong

Lord Wei Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wei (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for tabling this very timely debate. I refer to my registered interests, to my role as chair of the Hong Kong subgroup of the APPG on China, and to my being a British-born Chinese from Hong Kong.

The unrest in Hong Kong lately has been a cause of great concern to me personally and to those close to me. It is a beautiful place and its people possess a tremendous calling, not just to generate wealth and to be an entrepôt between mainland China and the rest of the world, but to be a source of people, ideas, and resources for the world. My ancestors left their village in Zhongshan, just across the border, after 23 generations via Hong Kong to join our global diaspora, like millions of others, by sea and air.

So it is especially heart-breaking to see the violence that has arisen on both sides of the divide in Hong Kong, in the streets and over the airwaves, as a city turns in on itself even as the world watches. This reflects a wider trend globally, where it seems that disagreement, fuelled by the internet as well as economic and political factors, is stretching our governance arrangements to the limit, whether in our own constitution, the situation in the US, in Northern Ireland, or indeed in Hong Kong with its “one country, two systems” model. It seems the hardest thing in the world right now is how to share power peacefully, whether you are being called to give some of it away or whether you want more of it. Evidently, the status quo everywhere needs to adapt. That is true even of the situation here in Westminster, but the question is always what we change the system into. As we well know, constitutional reform requires time to do well, and to listen to all parties and views. The unintended consequences of change can be severe further down the track.

However, to resort to violence seems to militate against carefully considered reform. All sides in the conflict in Hong Kong need to explore non-violent ways to move ahead and show restraint—I know that many do and they ought to be applauded—because the violence distracts from the real issues that need to be addressed around the world, whether around the rising cost of living, the creation of laws that infringe on individual freedom, especially of conscience or belief, intergenerational inequality and increasing monopolies of land, technology and talent. Doing nothing is not the answer to addressing these issues, nor, sadly enough, as we can see in the UK itself, is greater democracy in its current form necessarily a full-blown panacea to addressing the challenges we have here, which mirror those in Hong Kong and elsewhere.

The best way forward is for those who have the means and influence to help instigate change at the local level by bringing in responses based on truly listening to those who are protesting and the condition of the silent masses who sympathise with them. For example, how do we quickly build more affordable housing? I refer to the Bristol Housing Festival, which I am involved in, for a local UK response. How do we give our young people more hope, better jobs and opportunities, and empowerment in their lives generally? How do we curtail monopoly and monopsony domination of our markets?

Indeed, an era is coming soon when we will need to upgrade democracy itself. Our current model favours majorities over minorities and incumbents over new entrants, but in the age of the internet and social media a minority or new challenger that loses in our current democracy is no longer always content to let the matter rest. We need mechanisms to involve people and to get consent and buy-in at every level, not just at the headline majoritarian stage or in our formal legislatures. This is true in Northern Ireland, in Asia, in the US and around the world. Personally, I favour not just asking people who they like or what idea they like, which is expressed in our currently populist representative democracy and referenda model that we have inherited from over a century and decades ago, but asking directly what they think will work and allocating resources accordingly.

I have chosen so far not to engage with the top-line questions arising from this debate since I believe to focus on them is to miss the essential issue, which is how places such as Hong Kong can become better environments in which to live, in which their citizens feel they have a future and where no one is left behind or becomes so frustrated that they are tempted to rise up violently. Should we give all Hong Kong citizens full passports? That depends on whether doing so would help to increase the peace and address the future of Hong Kong, or risk antagonising an already tense and volatile situation.

Should the UK take a stronger stance with China on human rights abuses and back all pro-democracy protesters in the streets? The UK has been clear about its position on human rights, and has already made known its concerns about police conduct and rightly called for an inquiry. On the rule of law and the rising constraints on freedom in the region, the question is whether violent confrontation is the most effective way to address and convey these concerns, or whether there are other ways to help all our citizens have better lives.

I was encouraged, for example, when one of the developers in Hong Kong recently donated 3 million square feet of land to the Government to create affordable housing. It is a first practical step to change. While reform of governance is vital, the urgent way forward in many parts of the world is bringing immediate and long-term relief to workers and young people who have suffered a real-terms decline in wages over the last 20 years or more, compounded by rising housing and living costs. Only innovative and radical action by those who have the land, money and people resources can move the dial, working with protest groups as well as with government. It has happened in the past in our country, with Cadbury, Shaftesbury and Spedan Lewis, who founded the John Lewis model. Without them, we could well have suffered a bloody revolution here. We need similar Asian reformers now to step up and take their place in history.