At the end of August 2006, I will have completed two terms of my six years of service to the Hong Kong Christian Institute (HKCI). I want to offer this annual report with a sense of profound gratitude to the guidance of God’s spirit and to all of those who have contributed their efforts to make the ministry of HKCI a continuous witness of God’s justice and compassion in Hong Kong.

1. Tsang’s Governance Reflects the Colonial Spirit

As we study Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen’s maiden policy address that was presented last October, there are at least two characteristics which are indications of his efforts to re-establish Hong Kong’s colonial period, an era in which civil servants ran the government and its legitimacy to govern was built on a system of appointing elite members of the community to advisory bodies.

First, beneath all of the rhetoric of the policy address, there is a philosophy of government that will further enhance the power of the chief executive. Tsang even said bluntly that sharing power with the legislature was totally out of the question.

“We will consider creating within our executive agencies a small number of positions dedicated to political affairs,” said Tsang. “Their main duty will be to support the chief executive and principal officials in their political work.” In other words, the government’s accountability will be primarily accountability to the chief executive.

We must point out that as long as the government lacks the mandate to govern from the people its legitimacy and credibility will not be established. The only way forward for effective governance is to foster and implement a fully democratic political system in which people can have their voices heard at the ballot box.

Secondly, in addition to the emphasis on executive-led governance, Tsang’s appointment of eight new members to the Executive Council (Exco) has sparked public fears of possible conflicts of interest with the members collectively having directorships in more than 50 local and overseas companies and extensive business links with one another. Moreover, of Exco’s 15 non-official members, six are professionals, five have a business background and three represent political groups. Labour unionists have noted that Tsang’s appointments clearly indicate his bias toward the views of the professional and business elites.

2. Privatisation of the Public Sector and Its Impact on People’s Livelihood

In the past 20 years, the Hong Kong government has been a great promoter of the market economy and has adopted many structural adjustments advocated by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and other international financial institutions. One visible change is the privatisation and deregulation of Hong Kong’s public sector.

One example was the government’s Link Reit privatisation plan for public housing estate malls in 2003. With no public consultation, many people were unaware of the breadth and possible impact of the move until Lo Siu-lan’s court battle, which ended with a Court of Final Appeal (CFA) ruling that the sale could proceed as it did not breach the Housing Ordinance.

Established in the 1970s, public housing estate malls and wet markets have been part of community life in Hong Kong for decades. These businesses have become a crucial part of the community fabric, supplying such necessities as clothes, food and medicine to residents at affordable prices and providing jobs for Hong Kong’s grassroots communities. Since the properties came under the Link Reit’s control in November 2005, it has laid off hundreds of workers in its estates. It has also raised rents by as much as 50 percent. Major Link Reit shareholder TCI, a British-based hedge fund, has now joined the board of directors, raising fears of a further squeezing of workers and businesses through layoffs and rent increases in the pursuit of higher profits.

It is very sad to hear the views of a 72-year-old resident in Tse Ching Estate: “The Link has hurt people so much. It fires workers and increases rents. The government and Link said it would improve public housing residents’ quality of life, but instead, it is damaging our lives and adding to our pain.”

3. The Covert Surveillance Law and the Protection of Privacy

The controversial covert surveillance bill was passed in the early morning of Aug. 6, 2006, after a marathon debate. Pro-democracy legislators staged a dramatic walkout from the Legislative Council (Legco) chamber after a sunset clause that would have required the government and Legco to review the law in two years was voted down.

According to the comments of the democrats, the law does not provide adequate safeguards to protect the privacy of individuals. Moreover, the new commissioner for covert surveillance lacks the power to ensure that abuses are not only identified but that offenders are punished and victims compensated. The new arrangements also allow a small panel of handpicked judges to be appointed to vet surveillance applications. This process will be separate from the system for court hearings. The danger is that the judiciary’s independence will be further impaired.

For the government, the passing of the covert surveillance laws seems to be a victory, but it is one that could have serious consequences for Hong Kong. Once again, the strength of Hong Kong’s executive-led government and the absence of meaningful checks and balances in Legco were vividly illustrated by the passage and defeat of amendments to the bill. Hong Kong’s people will now have to live with the new law. Concerns about the flaws in the laws would have been eased if the government had inserted the sunset clause above, but it refused to do so. Now officials must make good on their promise to review the laws within three years. The public must put more pressure on Tsang’s government that the review must be done thoroughly, transparently and with the aim of strengthening the protection of people’s privacy.

4. The Attack on Legislator Albert Ho Chun-yan

The Hong Kong government and the public were alarmed by the blatant attack of Democratic Party legislator Albert Ho Chun-yan by three men wielding baseball bats and batons in a public place at a McDonald’s outlet in Central on Aug. 20. Although the attack lasted only a few minutes, Ho suffered injuries to his head, arm and face in what appeared to be a professional assault by perhaps triad members. The well-planned and premeditated daytime attack conveys a message that the people behind it are above the law and have no regard for anyone, even for such public figures as lawmakers and lawyers. As many legislators have pointed out, the crime is an open challenge to the rule of law and social order as well as the chief executive’s vow of strong governance.

Unfortunately, Ho is not the first public figure who has fallen victim to violence in recent years. Journalist Leung Tin-wai and two popular radio talk show hosts, Albert Cheng King-hon and Wong Yuk-man, were severely injured in similar attacks-cases that remain unsolved even though they happened years ago.

Although the attack on Ho is not believed to be related to politics, the savage crime has significant symbolic meanings as Ho is a lawyer as well as a legislator. If a lawyer or legislator’s safety can be threatened by thugs merely because he is doing his job, how is the legal system going to function normally? How is the city’s rule of law going to be maintained? Therefore, this attack was not just an assault on Ho but also on Hong Kong’s political and legal systems, an attack that calls for civil society to assist the police in any way possible to eradicate these violent forces in society and protect these essential institutions of Hong Kong.

5. The Sentencing of Ching Cheong for Spying for Taiwan

Ching Cheong, the chief China correspondent for Singaporean newspaper the Straits Times, was sentenced to five years in jail by a Beijing court on Aug. 31 after 16 months in detention. He was also stripped of his political rights for a year and had personal property worth 300,000 yuan (US$37,435) confiscated. Ching’s conviction and sentence said Ching had provided “state secrets” to an institute in Taiwan during his posting in Taiwan between April 2004 and April 2005, knowing that the institute was an intelligence agency. His family will file an appeal against the verdict.

Ching’s case has sparked an outcry from journalists and human rights groups. Hong Kong Journalist Association chairwoman Serenade Woo Lai-wan criticised the trial as it was not an open trial, she said, and the definition of what constitutes a state secret remains unclear. She warned that reporters could be arrested on any pretext and the verdict would destroy people’ confidence in press freedom on the mainland. In addition, the association also commented that it was against international law for Beijing to detain Ching for 16 months without a trial and deny him visits by his family and access to legal services. Ching’s trial is a setback for those who want to believe China’s pledges that it is moving towards a society based on the rule of law.

6. People’s Resistance to Defend Democracy and Social Justice

In December 2005, the streets of Hong Kong Island were filled with a series of marches which truly expressed the victory of people’s power in Hong Kong as well as by people from all over the world.

The first march was organised on Dec. 4 by the Civil Human Rights Front (CHRF), of which HKCI is a member, and 25 pro-democracy lawmakers. The march was held to protest against the government’s constitutional reform proposal, which was defeated by Legco on Dec. 21.

According to the government-proposed constitutional development package, there would have been an increase of the number of members of the Election Committee from 800 to 1,600 in 2007. It would have been achieved by the inclusion of all 529 district council members, of which 120 are government-appointed, with the remaining additional seats being awarded to existing business lobbies and the functional constituency sectors. In addition, the hurdle for nominating chief executive candidates would have been raised from 100 to 200 Election Committee members. Part of the opposition to this proposal was based on the fact that the proposed enlargement of the Election Committee would continue to exclude the vast majority of ordinary people and political power would remain firmly in the hands of a few.

Moreover, Tsang has provided no further details about the pace towards achieving full democracy beyond 2007 and 2008. Calls for a timetable for the introduction of universal suffrage have fallen on deaf ears.

In addition to the above victory of Hong Kong’s people, Hong Kong also witnessed a powerful people’s movement from all over the world in December that expressed its opposition to the unjust policies of the WTO during its ministerial conference. In Victoria Park, most of the protesters gathered and attended forums of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) set up under the umbrella of the Hong Kong People’s Alliance on WTO (HKPA) of which HKCI is also a member. Activists included farmers, migrant workers, labour unionists, sex workers and demonstrators from a variety of groups - human rights and environmental organisations, coalitions against trafficking in women and faith-based organisations advocating peace and justice.

Initially, the majority of Hong Kong’s people were apathetic about the WTO ministerial conference. However, many of them became more sympathetic and supportive of the protesters because of their dignified, creative and strong statements presented during the demonstrations, especially those of the Korean farmers.

During the various WTO activities, HKCI also played an active role in facilitating two ecumenical conferences in Hong Kong. The first conference entitled Globalising Economic Justice and Social Sustainability gathered about 200 people representing people’s organisations, social movements and faith-based communities in 29 countries to share, strategise and participate in the People’s Action Week from Dec. 8 to 12. The objective was to bring issues related to economic and social justice and sustainable development into the mainstream of the Church’s ministry.

The second conference, the Ecumenical Women’s Forum on Life-Promoting Trade, that was sponsored by the World Council of Churches (WCC) brought together 60 women and men from Dec. 12 to 14. The objective was to analyse from both a faith and feminist perspective the consequences of devastating WTO rules and the practices of rich countries, such as policies that strengthen corporations against people through the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and their pressure for a drastic reduction of agricultural tariffs in the South.

The above discussions made it clear once more that churches and faith communities cannot tolerate the current situation. It was emphasised that trade should respect and be built on fundamental values of justice and equality. Churches and civil society were called to strive for creating alternative economic models that are fair and based on care and sharing for an economy of compassion, not of profit.

While I was saddened and angered by the arrest and abuse of the detainees by the Hong Kong police, I also feel very grateful that, because of these meaningful events, the people’s movement in Hong Kong has grown much stronger and mature.

7. The Challenge of Being a Dissenting Voice in the Church

In the past year, HKCI continued to live out a prophetic ministry in order to be a faithful servant of God and to stand with the community’s marginalised people. Because of this conviction, we feel it is necessary to confront the authorities when they attempt to deny human rights and social justice. We also seek to speak as a dissenting voice in the institutional Church when it begins to look inward at itself and become a slave of worldly power.

I want to lift up three examples of how HKCI challenged the Church as a way to renew the Church.

The first example relates to the current discussion of whether the Church should participate in the Election Committee that will select the next chief executive in 2007. According to the Basic Law, among the subsectors is the religious subsector that includes Christians, both Catholics and Protestants.

In the 2002 chief executive election, the Church attempted to participate in this political process in a passive manner by merely collecting the names of Christians who wished to be candidates. This year, however, the Hong Kong Christian Council (HKCC) will inaugurate a more active method by encouraging all Protestants to register as electors in the subsector and to nominate candidates for an election HKCC will hold to determine the Protestant representatives. While this procedure is more democratic and responsible, it continues to confuse our political role as Christians in society. It negates our independent position in society and potentially, if not actually, muzzles our moral voice as we as Christians and the Church no longer stand outside of the political system but are a willing participant inside of it. In effect, it transforms the Church and Christians into a political interest group rather than a group concerned with the political and socio-economic interests of the weakest sections of society. Consequently, we as Christians should refrain from accepting this political privilege and should not participate in the subsector elections for the Election Committee.

Reminding the Church to be clear about the Church’s involvement in politics is not for the benefit of our own political interests or to gain political power. Rather, our role is to be a moral compass of society, to be a prophetic voice for justice for the powerless and for people who are marginalised by those who dominate our society politically and economically. HKCI and Christians for Hong Kong Society issued a joint statement explaining our concern and suggesting that HKCC cancel the subsector elections for the Election Committee. Although we were not able to convince HKCC to abandon their decision, we will continue to maintain a mutual dialogue with HKCC and will seek alternative models of Christian participation under this discriminatory political system.

The second example involves the withdrawal of the China Graduate School of Theology’s invitation to Yu Jie, a prominent Christian author and a member of the unofficial Church in mainland China, to attend a scholarly function in June 2006. The invitation was originally presented to him during his talk at the Chung Chi College of the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s second Christian Festival in early April. However, after Yu and two mainland legal scholars, Wang Yi and Li Baiguang, met U.S. President George W. Bush at the White House on May 12, he received an e-mail from the School of Theology informing him that their invitation had been withdrawn. They did not give any reason except that, in view of the current situation, it was not appropriate for Yu and his friend Li Baiguang to visit the China Graduate School of Theology. Yu then issued a public statement expressing his deep regret about the School of Theology’s decision and asked for a public apology and compensation. He also expressed concern about religious freedom in Hong Kong. According to the South China Morning Post on May 13, Yu remarked that Hong Kong is becoming more like the mainland: “I had thought this would only have happened in the mainland and never thought it would occur in Hong Kong.”

In addition to expressing our concern about the China Graduate School of Theology’s withdrawal of Yu’s invitation and the importance of the Church in Hong Kong to uphold the value of academic and religious freedom, HKCI also organised a public talk for Yu and another member of his church to share how they defend their religious freedom on the mainland.

From the above incidents, it is clear that implementing “one country, two systems” involves a dynamic process between the mainland and Hong Kong. Since the handover, the influence of China’s system poses a threat to Hong Kong’s system. On the other hand, the frequent exchange of people between the two systems creates an opportunity for Hong Kong to also influence China’s system. Therefore, it is important for the people of Hong Kong and its Christian community to uphold the positive values of Hong Kong’s system, such as an independent judiciary, freedom of religion, freedom of the press and a lack of corruption in both the public and private sectors.

In the past few years, there has been a tendency, especially in the Protestant Church in Hong Kong, for self-censorship of the Church’s prophetic voice in an attempt to avoid upsetting China’s leaders so that work with mainland churches can be maintained. The participation of Protestants in the Election Committee subsector and the withdrawal of Yu’s invitation are reflections of this self-understanding.

The third example concerns HKCI’s participation in the community parade for the second International Day against Homophobia on May 21, 2006. We also held a religious blessing ceremony as a symbol of our commitment to seek love and reconciliation with sexual minorities in Hong Kong and throughout the world. The objective of our religious blessing ceremony was to enable the public to remember all those who have suffered from different kinds of violence and death in the homophobic atmosphere around the world. We also want to appeal to all religions in Hong Kong, including Christianity, to set aside our prejudices against sexual minorities and to appreciate each other’s differences as gifts from the Divine. We believe that in spite of our differences all religions share the same vision and mission as advocates of tolerance, peace and love for everyone in our society. Thus, we hope this event will shed new signs of hope for reconciliation between sexual minorities and our community’s religions.

During the parade, we held a banner with the words “Love One Another,” just like the message stated in the Bible in the Gospel of John 13:34: “A new command I give you: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” During the ceremony, representatives of different religious communities shared their prayers and songs. We were especially grateful to have the Rev. Elias Tseng, the former pastor of Tong-Kwang Light House Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, and two of their members lead a prayer at our ceremony and to offer a talk for the Christian community after the ceremony and parade.

8. Ecumenical Cooperation and Solidarity

Last year HKCI helped initiate two very meaningful ecumenical projects with our local as well as overseas partners. The first project was to cooperate with our ecumenical partners to advocate for a just and caring global economy. The objective was to educate Christians and the wider community in Hong Kong about the impact of globalisation on their lives during the WTO’s sixth ministerial meeting, an objective that still continues.

Among the components of this ecumenical project have been globalisation forums for seminaries, lay Christians and local church pastors. HKCI also formed four task groups to do more in-depth research on the effects of globalisation on Hong Kong. The research topics included tourism, the privatisation of public services, investment and labour issues.

At a seminar on Jan. 19, 2006, in addition to hearing the four research reports from the above task groups, HKCI also invited several church leaders to give responses from the perspective of local churches. During the meeting, the leaders shared three major challenges with which the Church in Hong Kong is grappling as a result of the impact of economic globalisation:

1. As many theologians have pointed out, the free market economy has gradually become a new religion, a phenomenon which poses a great challenge for the Church to resist as it is very tempting and seems to offer security for many people, even the Church, as they join the flow of mainstream society.

2. Most Christian congregations in Hong Kong are from the middle-class sector and have adopted individual survival skills and a defensive “everybody-for-themselves” mindset that spurs people to become overly individualistic and self-centred. In addition, middle-class culture is more tempted to embrace the Gospel of personal salvation that focuses on converting people to Christianity and planting new congregations. Christians are encouraged to neither make a social witness in the community nor seek justice. As a result, economic justice is seldom adopted as part of the agenda of the Church.

3. While the mainline churches over the years have administered thousands of hospitals, schools and social welfare centres, they have relied primarily on the Hong Kong government and the contributions of wealthy individuals in the community to finance their operations. Consequently, the Church has lost its independence. Since the mid-1990s, the government has cut subsidies for this work; and with privatisation and the opening of social service subsectors to others, the institutional Church thus faces competition and pressure from all directions as care-providing NGOs. Instead of creating alternatives for the poor and oppressed, however, the Church finds itself imprisoned by the existing system.

The challenge for our Church today is whether we dare to leave our comfortable and secure shelter and reorient our mission in affirming the people’s right to take charge of their economic lives, especially to respond to the primacy of the poor.

Another highlight of this project was to invite Prof. Ofelia Ortega, a theologian from Cuba, to be a visiting professor in Hong Kong in the fall of 2005 to co-teach a course entitled Economic Globalisation and Theology for the Divinity School of Chung Chi College of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Lutheran Theological Seminary with Prof. Kung Lap-yan and myself.

As well as teaching in the seminaries and presenting four public lectures for the wider ecumenical community in Hong Kong, Prof. Ortega, accompanied by Prof. Kung and myself, visited Nanjing to meet with the faculty and staff of the Nanjing Seminary in mainland China. A very fruitful discussion was held with the academic dean of the seminary, Dr. Wong Pieng, and several of her faculty members. Since this was Prof. Ortega’s first visit to China, it is hoped that this type of exchange between China and Cuba will be strengthened in the future.

I especially appreciated Prof. Ortega’s message that she shared with us at one of her public lectures: “The Church is called to be non-conformist and [a web of] transformative communities because life is not possible unless we undertake transformation that addresses the roots of injustice. We as churches are called to create spaces for, and become agents of, transformation, even as we are entangled in and complicit with the very system we are called to change.”

Another meaningful event was a Hong Kong fact-finding mission to one of our neighbouring countries, the Philippines. In recent years, there has been an extraordinarily large number of people extrajudicially killed in the Philippines, including lay church workers and clergy members, peasants, workers, students, journalists and lawyers. Most victims have been advocates for the poor. Reports from human rights groups in the Philippines indicate that more than 700 people have been killed since President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo took office in 2001.

In order to share our care and concern about the escalation of these killings and to express our solidarity with the victims’ families, several local and regional NGOs and church groups organised a fact-finding mission to the Philippines from July 23 to 28, 2006. The delegation included representatives of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, Hong Kong Bar Association, Asian Human Rights Commission, Asian Students Association, Justice and Peace Commission of the Catholic Diocese and Debby Chan from HKCI. The mission interviewed a number of witnesses to these political killings. Many of the victims are members of progressive groups and human rights activists. Before their death, some of them were harassed and warned not to continue their work. According to witnesses, some of the perpetrators wore masks and military uniforms.

The major concluding observations of the mission include the following:

1. The unabated killings and attacks against activists in the Philippines have revealed a completely inadequate response by the government to prevent further deaths and to remedy this worsening situation.

2. The police’s responsibility to investigate these cases has fallen short of what is required, resulting in the perpetrators having yet to be prosecuted in a court of law in almost all cases.

3. In most of the cases involving the killing of activists, the inability to properly gather evidence has meant that the perpetrators have not been identified. People who were present at the shooting are so afraid that they are unwilling to be witnesses. This fear and the inability of the police to protect witnesses has also prevented many cases from being brought before a court of law.

To prevent further extrajudicial killings of activists and human rights defenders and to avert a new crisis in the country, the mission demands that the government take these immediate actions:

1. Full investigations and judicial inquiries must commence without delay with a view to holding the perpetrators fully accountable for their crimes and making clear that this pattern of killings will not be allowed to continue.

2. Witness protection must be given to everyone who has witnessed these crimes.

3. The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) of the Philippines must play an active role by coordinating its work with the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) rather than waiting for other agencies to take the initiative, and it should consider recommendations to indemnify the families of the dead.

4. The government must condemn and demand the retraction of statements by the armed forces that label groups as “communist sympathisers.

As we learn more about the political assassinations taking place in the Philippines, we are deeply troubled by the violence and wanton disregard for people’s lives. Those whose lives have already been taken are treasures for the people as well as others around the world, for they have given their lives for the common good - something that is sorely absent in our world today. We at HKCI thus feel a responsibility to walk with our brothers and sisters in the Philippines at this critical time and to express our solidarity with them by being part of the fact-finding mission. In addition to joining the fact-finding mission, HKCI, along with other concerned organisations, will continue to raise the awareness of Hong Kong’s people about the violence that is threatening the lives of so many Filipinos. We believe that, while we often talk about ecumenical relations in conferences, now is the time to put our words into practice.

9. Conclusion

Although support from our overseas partners has decreased in the past year, we are still grateful that the blessing of God has always surrounded us. This year HKCI was granted the opportunity to hold its third flag day fund-raising event in Kowloon. With the generous support of individual donors and the help of 220 volunteers, we were able to raise HK$212,634.10. Although we did not meet the government’s minimum criteria to hold a future flag day fund-raising event, we still want to express our heartfelt thanks to all our donors and volunteers who were willing to offer their time and money to support our fund-raising mission.

In closing, I want to thank my dear colleagues for their dedication to translate HKCI’s vision into practical action. I also want to thank our chairperson, Prof. Chan Shun-hing, and our management committee members who have offered their precious time and knowledge to participate in our work and provide advice to the staff. I especially want to extend my deep appreciation to our dear friend Regula Kaufmann, who worked with us as a part of the professional exposure programme of Mission 21 in Switzerland from May 2005 to February 2006. Her main task was to assist our work related to the ecumenical cooperation project on globalisation. In addition to her contribution to this work, we also treasured her openness to learn and to share her views as well as her cultural experiences with us. Her presence was, indeed a precious gift for us.

Lastly, I want to inform you that I have decided to leave HKCI, this wonderful home, by the end of August 2007. This means that the coming year will be my last year to serve HKCI. I hope God will enable us to make this transition year be a fruitful experience and an opportunity to generate new visions, new insights and new energy to bring new transformation for the future development of HKCI. Another significant event of the coming year is that it will mark the 10th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to Chinese sovereignty. HKCI will thus organise a series of activities to enable our civil society and the Church to actively participate in the process of reflecting on the past 10-year journey and to strategise about the future direction of Hong Kong’s civil society movement. Since HKCI will celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2008, I believe it is an appropriate time for HKCI to seek a new generation of leadership for the new era of our mission. May the love of God continue to guide HKCI to have the vision and the courage to faithfully face the challenges of our community in the coming years.

Rose Wu
August 31, 2006