Opinion

Newton Emerson: Tiny little Northern Ireland is being drawn into larger Hong Kong-China game

First minister Arlene Foster, pictured right, and deputy first minister Michelle O'Neill, pictured left, insist they were misrepresented in a Chinese Consulate account of their video meeting with Consul General Madame Zhang Meifang, pictured centre
First minister Arlene Foster, pictured right, and deputy first minister Michelle O'Neill, pictured left, insist they were misrepresented in a Chinese Consulate account of their video meeting with Consul General Madame Zhang Meifang, pictured centre First minister Arlene Foster, pictured right, and deputy first minister Michelle O'Neill, pictured left, insist they were misrepresented in a Chinese Consulate account of their video meeting with Consul General Madame Zhang Meifang, pictured centre

NORTHERN Ireland has the potential to cause China some embarrassment.

Not much, perhaps, but more than might be imagined to a country 700 times our size and 5,000 miles away.

Many Chinese people are aware the UK has a contested region, even if they are understandably hazy on the details (someone there once confidently informed me Northern Ireland was "part of Yorkshire". I was too impressed they had heard of Yorkshire to correct them.).

The Chinese Communist Party has occasionally encouraged this awareness through propaganda of the 'Western problems and hypocrisies' type, although it has never pushed the subject as far as did the Soviet Union, despite China having suffered more than Russia at British imperial hands.

In 1982, an Irish diplomat in Moscow summed up the Soviet attitude to Northern Ireland as being "a convenient stick with which to beat the West".

For Beijing's communists that stick can look more like a boomerang, bringing back awkward questions about their own contested claims on Tibet, Taiwan and Xinjiang.

Chinese culture harbours a deep fear of even the core part of the country breaking up, as happened most recently from 1916 to 1928, causing total anarchy.

Maintaining a united China is a key appeal of the Communist Party and an important reason why most citizens accept dictatorial rule.

So gloating about a disunited kingdom has its limits. A striking illustration of this occurred during the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, when Chinese internet users became fascinated and impressed by the idea of country holding a democratic secession vote and agreeing to abide by the outcome.

Beijing found this so ominous, the Chinese prime minister publicly opposed Scottish independence.

The Communist Party's sensitivities on this point are extremely fragile. In 2008, China banned UK athletes and fans at the Beijing Olympics from carrying English, Welsh, Scottish or Northern Ireland flags, saying this would be a "political demonstration" - a position rejected by British and Olympic officials.

Amnesty International said the ban was about keeping "domestic activists silenced".

A decade on, Northern Ireland is increasingly cited as a comparator with Hong Kong.

As soon as serious disorder broke out in the territory last year, the media there and around the world began drawing parallels.

"Northern Ireland's 'Troubles' could show where Hong Kong is heading", ran a headline last October in the South China Morning Post.

"What Hong Kong can learn from Northern Ireland: three steps to avoid 30 years of tragedy," the Hong Kong Free Press offered last December.

The breakthrough international article, also published last October, was by former CNN senior Asia correspondent Mike Chinoy.

"Could Hong Kong become Belfast?" was the title.

In many ways it is remarkable this has not been a common comparison since 1984, when the UK and China signed a joint declaration on Hong Kong's future.

The following year's Anglo-Irish Agreement had related aspects, as did parts of the Good Friday Agreement.

However, the apparent similarities have always turned out to be misleading on closer inspection.

Northern Ireland is not a colony, despite a sly sectarian fashion in academia to say so. Hong Kong is not divided by identity: its people are Chinese and proud of it.

Authors such as Chinoy note that Northern Ireland and Hong Kong remain profoundly different. Their argument is that these differences are reducing and could conceivably reach a sudden tipping point.

For example, Hong Kong's electorate now has a roughly 60/40 anti- and pro-Beijing split, which could evolve into a Northern Ireland-type division as China cracks down against civil rights with laws enforcing national unity and allegiance.

It is unlikely the Chinese Consulate in Belfast had much of this in mind when it claimed Arlene Foster and Michelle O'Neill said they "understand and respect" Hong Kong's new security law, during a video call last month.

The Consulate's job is to report platitudinous obeisance to Beijing.

Stormont's first and deputy first ministers insist they were misrepresented. Foster says she supports UK government policy; O'Neill says "I made it very clear that I supported the 'One Country, Two Systems' international agreement."

There may be room here for creative misunderstanding.

In any case, foreign policy is not devolved, Stormont has legitimate economic issues to consider and there is little point starting an argument during a diplomatic courtesy call.

But things may not stay this simple for much longer. Tiny little Northern Ireland is being drawn into a larger game.