HONG KONG - Documents seen by Kyodo News have revealed that high-ranking Chinese military officials in November 2014 considered military intervention to suppress a pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, raising questions about Beijing's commitment to the former British colony's semi-autonomy years before China introduced a sweeping national security law.
At the time, many in Hong Kong deemed direct military intervention out of the question, believing China was tolerant of the city's pro-democracy activism under the "one country, two systems" framework, which guaranteed it a high degree of autonomy after its handover from Britain to China in 1997.
The large-scale occupation by protesters in 2014, widely known as the Umbrella Movement, was sparked in September that year after China decided that Hong Kong's leader would be selected only from candidates approved by Beijing, ruling out the possibility of full universal suffrage in electing the territory's leader.
Protesters used umbrellas to shield themselves from police tear gas, which led to the umbrella becoming the movement's symbol.
The documents, obtained by Takashi Suzuki, a professor of China studies at Daito Bunka University, are summary records of speeches and other material from military meetings held between October and November 2014, which also involved Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has chaired the Central Military Commission, the country's supreme military body.
One of the documents, dated Nov. 2, recorded remarks by Wei Liang, then political commissar of the now-defunct Guangzhou Military Region of the People's Liberation Army, at a military work meeting.
"At present, it is especially important to prepare for military operations to deal with extreme situations in Hong Kong in order to ensure that we can take action and control the situation at a moment's notice," Wei, who led the military region in southern China bordering Hong Kong, was quoted as saying.
"Once we receive an order, we will act immediately," he said, according to the document.
Suzuki said Wei's remarks indicated that the possibility of deploying the military to crack down on the protests in Hong Kong "did indeed exist" and that the military remained prepared to do so thereafter.
Toru Kurata, a Rikkyo University professor specializing in Hong Kong politics, said the document provides the first confirmation of a plan within the military to intervene in Hong Kong.
The Umbrella Movement was quelled in December 2014 following a forced clearance operation by Hong Kong police.
Sources familiar with the matter suggested that China did not resort to armed intervention due to concerns over potential international isolation similar to that faced by the country in the wake of the 1989 military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
While the possibility of Chinese military intervention was only briefly discussed among the thousands of Umbrella Movement protesters, then U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry raised the movement with then Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi during a meeting in October 2014, apparently calling on Beijing to refrain from military intervention.
Five years after the movement, Hong Kong saw another wave of large-scale protests in opposition to an extradition bill proposed by the city government. During the 2019 protests, the paramilitary People's Armed Police Force was stationed in neighboring Shenzhen under the command of the Central Military Commission.
Amid anti-government protests that continued into 2020, Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law in June that year, criminalizing broad categories of political dissent in a move critics say has put the former British colony on an authoritarian trajectory.
