michael barbaro

From The New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.” [MUSIC] Today, inside Hong Kong’s airport, thousands of protesters are trying to send a message to the people of mainland China. What the people of mainland China are making of that message. It’s Wednesday, August 14th. Javier Hernandez, how did you come to be at the airport in Hong Kong on Monday?

javier hernandez

Well, I’m a Beijing correspondent for The Times, and I had been in Hong Kong for several days reporting on these protests as they reached this breaking point. So I was headed home. I had packed my bags. I had headed to the airport. And then suddenly, my phone just started buzzing with alerts. And I looked down, and there were all these reports about mass chaos at the airport, about flights being canceled, about protesters kind of taking over the terminal. So I hopped on the train and headed out there.

[non-english speech over loudspeaker]

speaker We will soon arrive at Hong Kong International Airport.

javier hernandez

Already on the train, you could sort of sense this intense sense of unrest. There were protesters just filling up the cars. They’re all wearing their black T-shirts, which was kind of a signature of this movement. You could sense the protest was building.

speaker Airport. Doors will open on the left for Terminal 1.

javier hernandez

So I get off the train.

javier hernandez I’m here in the main arrivals hall of the Hong Kong airport, and there is a crowd of people just sitting here. They break into cheers. [PROTESTERS]

javier hernandez

It’s usually this dull place, you know, where you just see a lot of businessmen and other people lining up in the first class lounges. But on this day, you know, you look out and you just see a sea of people. There was just no space to move at all. It was really just a sense of chaos and not knowing what might happen.

speaker Stand with Hong Kong. Fight for freedom. Stand with Hong Kong. Fight for freedom.

javier hernandez

So I walked in, you know, thinking still that I could maybe catch my flight. So I ran up to the departures hall, and it quickly became clear that that wasn’t going to be possible. There were people kind of blocking the way to the departures hall. People had thrown up these luggage carts to use as a barrier, in some cases, to stop people from getting through. I looked on the walls, and there was graffiti, various slogans from the protesters. You could start to hear announcements from the airlines saying there are no flights going, it’s not safe, people should just leave.

speaker Attention, please. Passengers are reminded —

javier hernandez

So it felt like really that the protesters had taken over.

javier hernandez They’re taping signs to the floor, portraits of protesters and anti-police slogans.

michael barbaro

So these protesters have essentially shut down the airport.

javier hernandez

They shut it down, and very quickly.

michael barbaro

And Javier, why the airport? What’s the significance of that as a location for these protesters?

javier hernandez

Well, I think it’s a icon of Hong Kong. Hong Kong is such a global financial center. And in Asia in particular, Hong Kong is kind of this hub for everything. And so they knew that if they occupied this airport, if they were successful in stopping people from passing through, they could not only attract a lot of attention in the news media, but they could also reach a lot of people who might end up passing through the airport. You can imagine people who are bleary-eyed from their long trips from New York landing suddenly in Hong Kong and coming out to this sea of protesters chanting and holding signs. And part of that, increasingly, is also to talk to people from China. Every day, there are so many visitors from the mainland who come to Hong Kong. And this is an opportunity for these young protesters to speak directly to people in the mainland, to counter Beijing’s propaganda machine.

michael barbaro

So this is a rare opportunity for these protesters in Hong Kong to talk directly to mainland China, where a lot of information doesn’t get through.

javier hernandez

That’s right. And it really comes as the mainland has been trying to portray Hong Kong as a place of kind of spoiled brats, in many ways. They feel like Hong Kong has benefited a lot from its association with mainland China, that China has invested in infrastructure, China has helped to build its financial system. And so when they look at Hong Kong these days, they feel like, why are you protesting? What more could you ever want? And it really goes to this fundamental contradiction, I think, between the mainland and Hong Kong. In the mainland, the economy is central, and people consider economic success to equate with happiness. In Hong Kong, I think it’s much more complicated, much more like a Western society, where money is obviously extremely important, but people also want a bit more than that. And so you see this kind of collision course that these two different societies are on, one that believes in stability and economic prosperity, and the other that’s looking more for a voice and a seat at the table. When you talk to these protesters, the first thing they’ll tell you is we don’t want to turn into the mainland. We want to be special. We don’t want courts that are controlled by the Communist Party. We don’t want a press that has no ability to criticize the government. And so when you sit in the airport and kind of listen, what you’re hearing really, I think, is this passionate defense of democracy. And what these Hong Kong people want the world to understand is that they are going to stand up and prevent any kind of effort by the mainland to turn Hong Kong into another Chinese city.

michael barbaro

And Javier, from what you’re seeing through this admittedly limited window at the airport, are the protesters able to get through to mainland Chinese with that message?

javier hernandez

I think it’s really tough for them, and it mostly falls on deaf ears.

javier hernandez What do the mainlanders say when you speaker Ask for the democracy? javier hernandez Yeah. speaker They have the question mark over their head, what is democracy. Their faces, like, disagree with what you say. javier hernandez I was talking to a young woman today. She had been standing there all day at the arrivals hall, with the explicit goal of trying to get through to mainlanders. And she told me that she really felt like it wasn’t successful, that people would just walk by. There was a guy who flipped her off at one point. speaker We asked them, do you know what is democracy, do you have it in China? The democracy is not for sale. You can’t buy it. Do you know what is democracy? You have no idea.

michael barbaro

So Chinese mainlanders are hostile to that message.

javier hernandez

They are hostile. And that’s because, in large part, of this amazingly intense propaganda machine that exists in the mainland.

archived recording 1 [CHINESE PROPAGANDA]

javier hernandez

You know, one thing that’s caught on in the mainland is this idea that the protests are the work of America, that the C.I.A. is backing them, that it’s illegitimate, that America is just trying to meddle in China’s affairs and embarrass China. And a lot of people buy that. For a lot of them, they can’t really believe that people would come out to protest just out of their own interests. They believe that there must be somebody pushing them to do this, and that they are just pawns in this broader geopolitical war. [MUSIC]

michael barbaro

So Javier, why would that be a plausible story to the people in China, this idea that the U.S. is somehow behind what’s happening in Hong Kong?

javier hernandez

Well, I live in Beijing. And so there’s been this surge over the past year in anti-American propaganda, this attempt to pin all of China’s problems on the United States. Every time I’m in a taxi and news about America comes up on the radio, inevitably the driver will turn back to me and ask, why is America trying to hold China back? Why is America trying to stop China’s rise?

archived recording 1 [CHINESE PROPAGANDA]

javier hernandez

And a large part of that is the trade war that has broken out between the Trump administration and China. When I’m out and about talking to people, all they can say is, why now? Why would America try to do this? We’re in our moment, our greatest moment. China has come out of poverty. China is building its influence around the world. Why would America try to undermine that right now? It must be because America thinks that it’s losing its status as a superpower, and it’s just angry about that.

michael barbaro

So in the middle of this trade war, in the middle of all this propaganda, the fact that this protest erupts in Hong Kong, if you’re in mainland China, it all adds up to a sinister plot by the U.S. to undermine China’s rise.

javier hernandez

It all makes sense if you’re a mainlander. It’s this sense that America has led revolutions in other places, and now it’s China’s turn, that now it’s using Hong Kong to undermine China. And who knows what else. Maybe it’s plotting some kind of revolution. There’s really this I would almost call it a national campaign to drive up patriotism, and specifically to defend Hong Kong against what they see as this foreign threat.

michael barbaro

And did you see evidence in the airport that this is working?

javier hernandez

I did.

speaker Hello. javier hernandez Hi. I was here yesterday, and

javier hernandez

I was trying to reclaim a bag that I had checked before all this chaos broke out.

javier hernandez O.K. Where do I go? speaker [INAUDIBLE]

javier hernandez

And so I went to the airline desk, and of course there were dozens and dozens of mainlanders who were also heading back to Beijing. [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] And so we got to chatting a little bit, and these two friends from Sichuan province started to talk to me about how they saw the protests. [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] And they felt like nothing like this could ever happen in China. Hong Kong was unruly, and it must be some foreign force that had tried to bring this against China as a way to destabilize the country. And so you really hear, just talking to mainlanders, they almost pull these points out from the exact same places. They speak in the same terms about foreign influence and hostile foreign forces. And it’s kind of the same message that shows the effectiveness, really, of the Chinese propaganda machine. And the goal is really to just create doubts about information. What can be trusted and what can’t, what’s real and what’s not.

michael barbaro

But beyond what’s happening here with Hong Kong, it sounds like the people of China may really accept the idea that democracy is not a better system than the one that they have in the mainland.

javier hernandez

That’s right. There is enormous pride in China’s system, this sense that what the Communist Party has done has ensured stability and prosperity for so many Chinese. And so they’re very reluctant to see or really engage with any other kind of system, like democracy. For president Xi Jinping, he really believes in this, too. I feel that he really doubts this idea that, if you give more power, more voice to the people, that it will result in helping society. He thinks it could turn into chaos, people turn on each other. And he’s a guy who has spoken about the Soviet Union’s collapse. And that’s something that he, I think, keeps very front and center in his mind, this sense that the Soviet Union did not do enough to ensure ideological conformity. And he sees that as the root cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union, and he’s going to make sure that that doesn’t happen in China. And he sees Hong Kong as perhaps a first step toward that unraveling.

michael barbaro

So viewed from that perspective, it’s in the best interest of not just mainland China, but of Hong Kong to get these protests under control.

javier hernandez

Right. In the party’s view, it’s now time for national unity, not to be undermining China’s rise and speaking against the Communist Party. [COMMOTION] Inside the airport, the two camps really I think aren’t hearing each other anymore. [CLAPPING AND SHOUTING] There’s this sense that they’re speaking past each other. [COMMOTION] The protesters on the one side calling for democracy, the mainlanders coming from this propaganda perspective of thinking this is a conspiracy. And it’s this symbol of these two different Chinas, and a sense of the irreconcilable differences. [COMMOTION] And nobody seems to be willing to give an inch to move any closer to each other.

michael barbaro

Because how can you when it’s a battle over democracy versus authoritarian communism? Essentially, those are irreconcilable.

javier hernandez

Right. And it goes back to Hong Kong’s handover to China in 1997. There was a sense that this was going to be a grand political experiment, that maybe there was a way to blend autocracy with these civil liberties. But I think what a lot of people are now thinking is maybe we were wrong. Maybe there’s not really a happy middle ground here. Maybe there is no way to compromise.

michael barbaro

So with a divide that vast, where do you think that this goes from here, Javier?

javier hernandez

Well, there’s some speculation that it could get a lot worse, that Beijing would take military steps to control the protests. But many experts say that’s still very unlikely. They feel that Beijing wouldn’t want that kind of a reputational hit. They don’t want another Tiananmen Square incident, where the world’s decrying them for taking strong action against protesters. But there are a lot of other tools that China could use, things like punishing companies that work in the mainland. And the goal here is really to put these companies in the crosshairs.

michael barbaro

And is that a powerful enough lever, do you think, to make a difference?

javier hernandez

Well, already we’re seeing it’s making a difference.

archived recording 1 A suspension [INAUDIBLE] who joined illegal protests begins today.

javier hernandez

The Chinese government this week forced Cathay Pacific, this iconic Hong Kong airline, to prevent staffers or any employees who support or participate in these protests from doing any work related to flights to mainland China.

archived recording 2 Shares in the firm slumped over 4 percent Monday, that after Beijing demanded that Cathay punish staff who attended the protests. The firm moved fast to comply.

javier hernandez

And I think what they’re trying to do now is to lean on these members of the Hong Kong business community who share the value that’s most important to the Communist Party, which is that economic prosperity must come above all else. They’re hoping to set off this broader sense of fear among the business community in Hong Kong, and to show them and remind them that, if they want any access to the Chinese market, if they want to do any business in China, they’re going to have to get their employees in line.

michael barbaro

That’s kind of fascinating because, in some ways, that’s a very capitalist approach to this crisis of protests for democracy.

javier hernandez

Yeah. In many ways, China is using the tools of capitalism now, and hoping that people will think about the market and not think about ideals. And for a country that’s run by the Communist Party, it represents this remarkable shift that we’ve seen play out over decades. China cares more about money now than, in some ways, it cares about its own original ideals, the Communist ideals that were behind the People’s Republic when it was founded. [MUSIC]

michael barbaro

Javier, thank you very much.

javier hernandez

Thank you, Michael.

javier hernandez Many of the protesters told me that they worry that Beijing might escalate its crackdown. But they also said, so what? They have nothing to lose. They’re ready to fight this fight. And so for a lot of them, I think they’re just prepared for a battle that may stretch on for months or even years.

michael barbaro