The Contradictions of the Umbrella Revolution + Big Drought and Heavy Debt in Thailand

An obligatory part of any political campaign is taking credit or claiming victory (no matter how large the defeat) once the campaign is over. Proof that the Umbrella Revolution has already folded up comes in the form this morning of pro-democracy leaders claiming success because dialogue has begun between protesters and the Hong Kong government. Michael Forsythe and Alan Wong write this morning in "As Hong Kong Protest Ebbs, Organizers Claim Small Gains" that

Although the protest leaders and the remaining participants, who still numbered in the hundreds, insisted that the so-called Umbrella Revolution was a long-term project that was far from over, there was a sense on Monday of a winding down and, after 11 days of overnight street protests, a dissipation of energy. 

“I’m very, very, very tired,” said Dennis Chan, 28, letting out a melodramatic sigh as he prepared to go home to sleep after 10 days at the sit-in near the government center. “We all are.” 

“It won’t end today, but maybe tomorrow, maybe later, too, when there are fewer and fewer people,” he added. “It’s hard to say that we’ve won this battle. But it’s been positive in making pressure on the government to open a conversation with the students.”

Even the protest leaders, as they began to reflect on what the movement achieved and where it failed, were already adopting the past tense. 

“All gates were closed before,” Yvonne Leung, a spokeswoman for the Hong Kong Federation of Students, said in a phone interview. “We have now won some space for dialogue, and we’ve seen a growth in our civil society. The people used to be unaware of their own power, but now they know.” 

On Monday, the student groups that are the driving force behind the protests honored a commitment they made to the government the night before to clear the barricades enough to allow civil servants to return to work. By early Monday morning, all the entrances to the main government office complex were open, and workers were streaming in. 

Protesters remained at the camps and some roads remained blocked at the two main protest sites — at the central government offices in the Admiralty area downtown and the Mong Kok neighborhood across the harbor in Kowloon — but just steps away, it was business as usual in this bustling financial hub.

But if Occupy Wall Street (OWS) taught us anything, it is that once the encampments are taken down and cleared away it is very hard to put them back up. Popular movements are fickle. People are ruled by the "Been There, Done That" mindset. Movement leaders can't just push a button and expect another mass uprising.

So the students will get a few meetings with government officials, officials who are already offering the carrot of a some sort of pro-democracy participation in the nominating committee that sparked the Umbrella Revolution to begin with:

Mr. Ho, who along with founders of the protest movement, called Occupy Central With Love and Peace, are advising the student leaders in the talks, said Beijing and Hong Kong needed to “go back to the drawing board” and include the views of the democratic protest movement in a report to the National People’s Congress. “Everything is in the hands of Beijing,” he said.

But the government has all but ruled out such a reset.

Two Hong Kong government officials said that the current process for drafting a new elections law already calls for a new round of public consultations but is limited to how a nominating committee will be structured. The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said it was highly unlikely that the Hong Kong government would agree to revisit the decision of the National People’s Congress, which it considers the final word on the matter. 

That demand by the students and democratic lawmakers was unrealistic, they said. “Sooner or later, it’s going to sink in with them that what they’re asking for, they’re just not going to get,” one of the officials said. 

Moreover, the talks provide a useful delay for the government, helping to sap the energy of the protests without promising a meaningful compromise. 

Michael Tien, a pro-Beijing member of the Legislative Council in Hong Kong, said that was a conscious element of the government’s strategy. 

“Time is on the government’s side,” he said in a telephone interview. The talks “keep the Occupy movement under certain constraints so that it really doesn’t affect the day-to-day business in Hong Kong.” 

He said the students should focus on realistic goals, such as working to adjust the composition of the nominating committee that will vet candidates for the territory’s top job starting in 2017.

The students have demanded an open election for chief executive, without a vetting committee on nominations; the resignation of the current chief executive, Leung Chun-ying; and to revisit the entire process that led to the National People’s Congress decision. 

Yet in a sign of the gulf that lies between even the more realistic positions of the two camps, Mr. Ho said that cosmetic adjustments to the nominating committee that Mr. Tien suggested were off the table. “We are totally uninterested in it,” Mr. Ho said.

If Occupy Central sticks to this bargaining position it is going to come away with nothing. Why? Because OWS-type uprisings are one-off events. A core can remain as an info clearinghouse and pressure group able to stage smaller actions, but the ability to repeat prolonged mass sit-ins is just not there.

That is of course unless the protest movement is actually paid for by the oligarchy and has support of elements within the government, as we saw in Thailand this year with the Bangkok-based protests against the government of prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra that acted as a prelude to the military coup.

Thomas Fuller has an interesting story in today's paper, "Household Debt and Signs of Drought Squeeze Economy in Thailand," about drought in Thailand hitting the country's rice farmers, many of whom are highly indebted. Bad news for the military junta:

“The economy is the bread and butter of legitimacy,” said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University. “When it comes to politics, the military can command and control — they have very little open opposition. But they cannot control the world economy. And they cannot control the weather.” 

In a country with seven million farming households, mostly small landholders, the water shortage will affect the poorer segment of the population. 

Kuakoon Manasumphunsakul, a senior technician in the irrigation department of Chiang Mai Province, says the flow of runoff into dams is half the historical average because of an inadequate number of storms during the rainy season, which ends in about a month.

“We have to be prepared for a drought — it’s definitely going to happen,” he said. “If we don’t start saving water, it will be severe.” 

The dam closest to the city of Chiang Mai is at 17 percent capacity, the second-lowest level since it was built two decades ago. 

Although the water shortage appears to be mostly the result of lighter rainfall this year — dams in Thailand’s southern neighbor Malaysia are also sharply below their average levels — Nipon Poapongsakorn, an expert on rice cultivation at the Thailand Development Research Institute, says the problem has been amplified by decisions of the previous government to release too much water from dams over the last two years to avoid a repeat of the devastating floods of 2011.

Now the prospect of drought is leading to what Mr. Kuakoon calls “water wars” among the hotels and residents in cities, factories in industrial areas and farmers in the countryside. 

In addition to the north of the country, the authorities have warned farmers in the rice basket of the country, the basin of the Chao Phraya River, against planting a second crop this year because of the lack of water. 

Ms. Ampai, the farmer, said the ban on planting rice was announced through the municipal loudspeakers. She now hopes to plant other crops, possibly onions or garlic. But they will also require water from the dam. 

“If they don’t release the water, we will go and protest,” Ms. Ampai said. “They are transferring too much water to the city.”

The Bhumibol Dam, one of the country’s largest and the source of irrigation for a large part of the rice-growing heartland, is at only 40 percent of capacity, a water level seen only three times since it began operations in 1964. 

The Thai central bank says farmers have among the highest debt levels in the country. But they are by no stretch the only Thais with debt problems. 

Total household debt has doubled during the last four years, to over 10 trillion baht, or $306 billion, in the second quarter of this year, the equivalent of around 80 percent of the country’s gross domestic product and one of the highest rates in Asia. These numbers do not include the thriving business of black-market loans. 

Amara Sriphayak, who retired as an assistant governor of the central bank last week, recently warned that debt could cause a “huge decline in household spending rates” and created risks to the country’s financial stability. 

Pawnshops are a growth industry in cities and towns around the country. The Chiang Mai municipal government opened a fourth pawnshop last year and plans to open another this year.

A contradiction of the Hong Kong student-led protest movement is that it proceeded as if it had more support that it actually did. It called itself "Occupy" in emulation of Occupy Wall Street but tactically it was more akin to Thailand's People's Alliance for Democracy or Yellow Shirts, the popular front of the Thai military and Bangkok ruling elite. Yet there is no indication that the Hong Kong ruling elite support the students and Occupy Central. The ruling elite everywhere want to keep making money and protect their position at the top of the food chain.

So at the end of the day you have a mass pro-democracy youth movement tactically emulating a fascist popular front (not OWS because OWS never staged multiple street sit-ins in several locations throughout one city) egged on by slanted reporting in the Western media. Given all the contradictions, I suppose the Umbrella Revolution has to be considered something of a success.