Lam chau (doctrine)

Lam chau, laam chau, or laam caau (Chinese: 攬炒; Jyutping: laam5-2 caau2; lit.: 'embrace fry') is a Hong Kong term referring to a concept of mutually-assured destruction. The term has been picked up by Hong Kong protesters as a doctrine against the ruling Communist Party of China.

This article is about the Hong Kong doctrine. For the former island of Hong Kong, see Lam Chau.

Etymology

The Hong Kong Cantonese 攬炒 literally means 'embrace fry',[1] which journalist and City, University of London lecturer[2] Yuen Chan explained as meaning "if I'm gonna fry, I'm gonna drag you in with me", comparing it to the English language idiom "if we burn, you burn with us".[3] This English phrase has also been used by protesters for Hong Kong liberation,[4][5][6] and was used as the title of a 2020 documentary about the protests.[7] Taiwanese magazine Commonwealth also suggested a literal translation of 攬炒 as "jade and stone burning together".[8]

The term in Cantonese relates to an existing slang morphology, where 炒 (fry) is appended to other words to create a more idiomatic meaning. Yuen Chan gave the examples 炒股票, literally meaning 'fry stocks', which is used to refer to playing the stock market, and 炒冷飯, 'fry old rice', meaning to rewatch old television shows or movies.[9]

Use

The term is most prominently used by Hong Kong 'Scorched Earth' protesters[3] to promote the 'burn with us' strategy of achieving Hong Kong liberation from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rule. They call for international sanctions intending to damage Hong Kong financially, which would moreover damage the economy of Mainland China, and undertake protest actions that aim to see retaliation that damages both Hong Kong and China at large. One member of the group said that it is a doctrine of "phoenixism", saying that Hong Kong will burn but rise again.[10][11] Other protesters have said that if Beijing feels a threat to their economy coming, they will give the Hong Kong protesters what they want so as to placate them and not receive the financial implications.[10] After the Hong Kong national security law was enacted by China at the end of June 2020, the LA Times reported that the idea of lam chau was "radical" when it emerged in the protest movement in 2019, but "is becoming a reality [...] accelerating each day as China and the U.S. stoke the flames of a conflict that looks set to explode in Hong Kong".[1] In June 2020, after the announcement of the security law, The Daily Beast reported that the term was being used as graffiti and a protest call, and that the ideology of it was being seen as a final resort.[12]

It is also used more broadly to refer to the idea of sanctions against Hong Kong bringing down China in general. Nonviolent Hong Kong protest advocate and law professor at the University of Hong Kong Benny Tai had written in April 2020 that he then saw lam chau as inevitable but thought it would take years, expecting Beijing to start by restricting freedoms slowly before bringing in a national security law and causing international sanctions themselves; in May 2020, when the Chinese government approved a decision allowing them to make the security law, he wrote that "Beijing has skipped straight to the endgame" and that "the CCP [is] speeding up laam chau".[1][13]

Comparisons of the term to the English phrase also drew comparisons to the novel and film series The Hunger Games, where a longer phrase, "fire is catching and if we burn, you burn with us", is used as a mark of the revolution overturning the dystopian society.[10]

Reactions

The Chinese Hong Kong Liaison Office responded negatively to the use of the term, telling protesters they "will only destroy Hong Kong".[10] Chris Patten, the last Governor of Hong Kong before the UK handed the territory over to China, also criticised it. Patten supports Hong Kong protesters but felt that wanting to bring destruction "would only make the situation worse".[10] Willy Lam of the Chinese University of Hong Kong described it as "a lose-lose situation for everyone".[1]

After the Liaison Office publicly denounced the doctrine, it spread more. To oppose this, pro-Beijing groups in Hong Kong tried to push an opposite idea and started using the phrase "if you burn, you burn with them" to suggest the lam chau protesters were only hurting themselves.[13] Hong Kong political scholar Brian Wong also argued, in a piece published in The Diplomat in September 2019, that lam chau is dangerous; he wrote that the protesters advocating it do not have enough experience of Mainland China to see the differences between Hong Kong and Mainland China and recognise that Beijing sees the territory as replaceable.[14]

gollark: * heptagons and hexagons
gollark: It's clearly a tessellation of heptagons in hyperbolic geometry. smh my head.
gollark: okay.
gollark: If you need a step-by-step guide or something instead of just the regular documentation and a decent list of what's not available, you may not be suited to making an OC OS.
gollark: Did you know? Documentation can tell you what to do!

References
  1. "Analysis: With a new law for Hong Kong, Beijing makes clear sovereignty is its bottom line". Los Angeles Times. 2020-05-28. Retrieved 2020-07-04.
  2. "Yuen Chan, Author at Hong Kong Free Press HKFP". Hong Kong Free Press HKFP. Retrieved 2020-07-04.
  3. Yuen Chan. "Canto lesson: 攬炒 pronounced laam chau, literally embrace+fry". Retrieved 2020-07-04 – via Twitter.
  4. "BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent, "If we burn you burn with us"". BBC. Retrieved 2020-07-04.
  5. "Foreshadowing History? Why Hong Kong's One Country, Two Systems Framework Could Survive in Name Only". CommonWealth Magazine. 2019-09-13. Retrieved 2020-07-04.
  6. "r/FreeHongKongNow - IF WE BURN, YOU BURN WITH US". Reddit. Retrieved 2020-07-04.
  7. ""If we burn, you burn with us": a taste of Hong Kong's protests in four films | Sight & Sound". British Film Institute. Retrieved 2020-07-04.
  8. "From 'Be Water' to 'Liberate Hong Kong' - The Evolution of the Protest Slogans | Across the Strait". CommonWealth Magazine. 2019-08-05. Retrieved 2020-07-04.
  9. Yuen Chan. "also 炒樓, 炒股票". Twitter. Retrieved 2020-07-04.
  10. Pao, Jeff (2020-05-20). "Patten opposed to 'burn with us' strategy for Hong Kong". Asia Times. Retrieved 2020-07-04.
  11. Tsoi, Grace (2020-06-12). "The city of two masks faces a new crisis". BBC News. Retrieved 2020-07-04.
  12. Hong, Brendon (2020-06-01). "When Peaceful Protest Doesn't Work, What Do You Do? They're Asking That in Hong Kong, Too". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 2020-07-04.
  13. Pao, Jeff (2020-05-04). "Liaison Office slams 'burn with us' strategy". Asia Times. Retrieved 2020-07-04.
  14. Wong, Brian (6 September 2019). "Why the Mutually Assured Destruction Rhetoric in Hong Kong Is Dangerous". The Diplomat. Retrieved 4 July 2020.
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