Game Theory and the Political Movements in Hong Kong
Hong Kong, which was once a British colony, was handed back to the Chinese control in 1997. Before the handover, the Chinese government stated its respect towards the Hong Kong citizens’ freedom and rights, and promised to implement the “one country, two systems” policy for at least 50 years. However, in recent years, it was observed that the Chinese government has been influencing the democratic progression in Hong Kong. In 2014, Hong Kong desired for a universal suffrage system and Chinese government responded to that by suggesting the implementation of a universal suffrage system with “pre-screened candidates”. That is, Hong Kong people can vote for their Chief Executives but the candidates would be nominated by a committee that is controlled by the Chinese government. Essentially, the Hong Kong citizens were highly unsatisfied with how Chinese government influenced Hong Kong’s political system despite the “one country, two systems” premise. As a result, a group of activists started the Umbrella Revolution in Hong Kong. However, was the revolution the best approach to the situation? How should the Chinese government has responded?
In the academic paper that I read, the situation was examined using Game Theory. The payoff for the Hong Kong activists and the Chinese government was shown below:
In the figure above, the smaller the number, the higher the payoff. It appears that the Hong Kong activists (the protestors) have a dominant strategy of “fighting the law” given the above payoff. Knowing that the activists have a dominant strategy of fighting the law, the Chinese government should choose “not to fight” the activists to have a better payoff. The above payoffs were designed based on some assumed political goals for the two parties — Chinese government wants political stability and economic stability for the country; Hong Kong wants universal suffrage. Interestingly, if we change the scope of the Chinese government’s scope from maintaining national economic stability to expanding its economic influences globally, the payoff of the Chinese government changes, as illustrated in the new payoff graph below:
The change of the payoff shows how complicated game theory can be. How can we most precisely determine the payoff for each parties? A slight change of perspective can contribute to a totally different strategy used. In this case, it seems that only the Chinese government will be able to know what the actual payoffs to both parties will be. It is obvious that the activists want universal suffrage and their dominant strategy is to protest and voice their opinions. However, there is no way an outsider can tell what the Chinese government’s ultimate objective is. If the government has a mixed of concerns, which is most likely the case, how important each factor weighs can only be determined by the government officials. Anyone that is not directly involved in the Chinese governing party can only guess what the goal the government may be. Therefore, it seems rather impossible to predict what strategy the Chinese government may use given that different goals for the government yields different payoffs. Nevertheless, game theory is definitely a good approach to observe what the Chinese government and the Hong Kong activists might respond to each other in the journey of Hong Kong’s democracy progression. It is also interesting to note that the dominant strategy of “fighting the law” explains why Hong Kong activists have strived to protest for such a long period of time during the Umbrella Revolution in spite of the fact that such large scale protest rarely happens in Hong Kong. As illustrated by this analysis, game theory is definitely helpful to examine political situations worldwide.