Analysis: How Will the Hong Kong Fire Test Beijing?

TaiwanPlus News

A massive Hong Kong apartment complex fire killed over 100 people. The city's worst fire in decades may be a test for Beijing, which has tightened its grip over the territory in recent years. TaiwanPlus spoke to University of Chicago Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression Fellow Yaqiu Wang on China's reaction to the fire so far.

Transcript

00:00How has China reacted to the Hong Kong fires so far?

00:04The Chinese government has already, you know, issued several propaganda articles

00:09saying anybody who's raising questions about transparency and corruption should be,

00:17you know, potentially investigated for national security reasons.

00:22So the government is already kind of know that people are angry about it,

00:26and people will call for accountability.

00:29We're seeing reports that there were multiple safety failures leading up to this fire.

00:33What's the government's role in those safety failures falling through the cracks?

00:38Residents were complaining about the lack of safety enforcement surrounding the building.

00:46So clearly that people knew something was wrong, and they urged the government to,

00:52you know, look into the company's behavior, the contractors.

00:55The fire happened, people died.

00:58That was because the government didn't take seriously people's complaints, right?

01:02When you have a government that is not accountable to the people, right?

01:06And then, of course, it fosters corruption.

01:08You know, when the government leaders are not elected by the people,

01:13they don't have to answer to the people's demands.

01:16During a U.S. congressional hearing, you said that a fire in northwestern China in late 2022

01:23caused some political challenges for Beijing.

01:26Are we seeing similar challenges unfold here?

01:29I think it's similar in the sense that, obviously, that, you know, when there's a fire,

01:34some safety regulations were not enforced or, you know, measures were not enforced.

01:41So in that regard, you know, the Wuru Muqi fire or the Hong Kong fire are similar.

01:46That speaks to the government's failure.

01:48And when there's no free expression, people can't freely criticize the government,

01:53can't freely express, you know, whatever they think the problem with the government.

01:58All those things, you know, are the fundamentals of a democracy, of a free society,

02:05which is closely related to, you know, how well managed, how well run, you know, a city is,

02:13how accountable, how transparent the government is.

02:16It is a threat because the government knows that people are unhappy about this situation

02:21and people wanted to, you know, speak up about this situation.

02:23So they are preemptively, Beijing is preemptively sending the message

02:28to threaten the people that don't do that.

02:30You can be put in jail.

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