Normative Commitments vs. Geopolitical Constraints: Why Did Democracies Refrain from Supporting Hong Kong’s 2019 Protests?

초록

This study aims to investigate the factors influencing the lack of criticism from democratic governments towards China’s handling of the 2019 protests in Hong Kong. Democratic governments exhibited varied reactions to China’s stringent measures against democratic movements in Hong Kong in the year 2019. Nevertheless, existing research on the protests in Hong Kong has yet to explore the factors influencing the diverse responses of democratic governments towards Chinese policies related to the protests in Hong Kong. Empirical findings from data on government responses to China’s protest policy, gathered from the Forum for Religious Freedom-Europe (2020) and the Diplomat (Tiezzi, 2020), indicate that lower level of democracy and ethnic and civil conflict dynamics hinder democratic countries from expressing dissenting views on Chinese policies.

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