January, 2007

POLITICAL REFORM
The Challenges of Hong Kong's March towards Democracy

Dr. Chan Ka-lok

(In order to mark the 10th anniversary of Hong Kong's handover this year, HKCI will launch a series of articles in our monthly English newsletter from January to August to inform the international community and churches about Hong Kong's experiences during its first decade under the sovereignty of China based on the critical reflections of local social and political activists. The theme of this series of articles will be "One Country, Two Systems: Ten-Year Experiment and Beyond." We are very grateful to Dr. Chan Ka-lok, an associate professor at Baptist University, to agree to be the first writer in this series.)

Discussions prior to the scheduled reunification of Hong Kong with China on July 1, 1997, were primarily concerned with identifying the conditions under which implementation of "a high degree of autonomy" and "Hong Kong people ruling Hong Kong" under an overbearing communist regime were likely to succeed or fail.

At first glance, the notion of "Hong Kong people governing Hong Kong" seems to presage some form of democratic government for Hong Kong after reunification. Ten years later though Hong Kong still awaits a genuine effort to modernise the way people are governed. This political process is necessary if there is to be some prospect of anchoring "one country, two systems" in the popular imagination and thus of strengthening the foundations of a sense of civic and political identity.

Since the handover, however, the process of democratisation has suffered from a series of setbacks. The most significant was Beijing's decision to replace the Legco elected under rules introduced by Gov. Chris Patten in 1995 with a provisional body of undemocratically chosen members who were "elected" by a 400-member Selection Committee. This step backwards was followed by the new administration's attempt to undo Patten's reforms. Thus, the first post-handover Legco elections were held in May 1998 with a drastically reduced franchise in the 30 functional constituencies and the 10 Electoral Committee seats. Moreover, the plurality system and single-member constituencies used for the remaining 20 geographical seats in 1995 were replaced with proportional representation in five geographical constituencies, each returning three to five members. The overall outcome of such compartmentalized elections could neither be fair nor democratic in spite of the government's campaign to show that they were. In effect, the new arrangements made it easier for pro-Beijing and pro-business parties to gain seats at the expense of pro-democracy parties.

The first chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa, ignored all requests, including those from Legco, for public consultation on democratic reforms. Instead, he proceeded to abolish in 1999 the Urban and Regional Councils, the only independent policymaking bodies in Hong Kong. His decision to reclaim the power to appoint one in four district council members was not well received either. Last but not least, Beijing's unabated support for Tung led to no competition at all for the 2002 chief executive election by an unrepresentative Election Committee. In fact, the expansion of four directly elected seats to Legco in 2000 in accordance with the Basic Law marked the only democratic progress at all during the first years after the handover.

Tung's antipathy towards democratic reforms was attributable to Beijing's apprehension about the uncertainties that a democratic transition might bring about. In particular, the burgeoning pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong has always been looked upon with great suspicion. In the worst case scenario, Beijing has to crack down on a democratically elected Hong Kong government that stands against the interests of the central government. As the ultimum remedium, Article 18 of the Basic Law provides that when the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) decides to declare a state of war or a state of emergency in Hong Kong the central government may issue an order applying the relevant national laws in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR). As the repercussions of taking such actions against Hong Kong would be considerable, Beijing leaders are definitely in favour of entrusting power to people in Hong Kong who are able to read their minds correctly and act accordingly. All this has cast a long shadow over the prospects of democratisation in Hong Kong.

Moreover, Beijing has reserved ultimate control over Hong Kong's democratic transition. According to Annex I of the Basic Law, Beijing's approval must be obtained in order to introduce changes to the existing method for electing the chief executive. Procedurally, the communist-led NPC Standing Committee will put the leaders' decision into effect. The hurdle for the introduction of Legco elections by universal suffrage appears to be less formidable as Annex II of the Basic Law only says such changes "shall be reported" to the NPC Standing Committee "for the record." Still, it is difficult to envisage any progress in this direction without the blessing of the communist leadership. As long as Beijing remains unyielding on the issue of democratisation, Hong Kong is not free to revamp its system of governance. In short, the bottom line is about control.

On the eve of the fifth anniversary of the handover, Chinese Vice Premier Qian Qichen, who was in charge of Hong Kong and Macau affairs in 2002, made the most unequivocal statement thus far on the limits of democratic reform. Talking to Hong Kong journalists in Beijing, he cautioned against any rapid moves towards a directly elected legislature after 2007. He explained that "past practices have shown that the model based on functional constituency elections is an effective way to ensure that people in various walks of life can have balanced participation in political life. As a result, this should be kept intact." On the same occasion, Qian also pressed the government to introduce anti-subversion legislation under Article 23 of the Basic Law. Qian's comments could only be interpreted in one way: Beijing remains hostile to the idea of full democracy in Hong Kong. As noted above, this is not a sudden volte-face but the outcome of a process that had already begun during the Sino-British negotiations in the 1980s. Still, it is objectionable that Qian should openly seek to arrest the process of democratic reforms. In doing so, he not only set the tone for the forthcoming review of electoral methods at the time but also dashed hope that Hong Kong would be free to move closer towards a full-fledged democracy soon.

Meanwhile, pro-Beijing business leaders and grassroots organisations in Hong Kong have paid only lip service to universal suffrage. The central claim of the pro-Beijing camp is that democracy engenders social disarray, which, in turn, puts the economy at risk. Under the auspices of Beijing, these sceptics are growing into a formidable force against democratisation.

The call for democracy, however, has not been stifled. The majority of Hong Kong citizens are still in favour of representative democracy as opinion surveys continue to reveal a high level of public support for elections based on universal suffrage.

Public disgruntlement with the government's handling of the introduction of Article 23 anti-subversion legislation, which occurred against the background of an economic depression and the SARS epidemic, came to a head in the summer of 2003. No less than half a million residents took to the streets on the handover's anniversary to vent their anger at the Tung administration and demand universal suffrage. After much soul-searching, Beijing orchestrated Tung's resignation in 2005 before the end of his second term. His successor, Chief Secretary Donald Tsang, has enjoyed consistently high ratings in opinion polls with a style of government more attuned to the sentiments of the general public.

It goes without saying that Tsang's unexpected ascent to power was little more than a tactical concession to ease social tensions, but Beijing had no intention to alter the contours of power in Hong Kong. Instead, the NPC Standing Committee was once again invoked to reinterpret the Basic Law to rule out any meaningful political reforms towards democracy in 2007 and 2008. With Beijing's consent, Tsang introduced a so-called district council package that was a far cry from Hong Kong's aspiration to have a full-fledged democratic system. The calls for a timetable and a roadmap towards democracy were flatly dismissed out of hand. Public opinion was divided but volatile. In the event Tsang's reform package did not receive the required two-thirds support in Legco on Dec. 21, 2005, Tsang was happy to put the issue on hold by allowing the newly appointed Commission for Strategic Development to search aimlessly for a "consensus."

Bearing in mind Beijing's anxiety about the political influence of Hong Kong on the rest of China, democratisation of the territory is bound to be fraught with difficulties. The implementation of the "one country, two systems" framework has formed part of a much wider strategy for China's economic modernisation but has involved no serious challenge to thoroughly Marxist-Leninist notions of how political life is supposed to be conducted in China. In the end, it remains entirely contingent on the bounds of Beijing's tolerance.

Hong Kong's growing economic dependence on the Chinese market is a mixed blessing; but as Hong Kong aligns its economy more deeply with the Chinese economy, there are emerging qualms that Hong Kong is undergoing a gradual "deinternationalisation" and, by extension, the erosion of its comparative advantages against other up-and-coming Chinese cities, such as Shanghai and Guangzhou. In addition to the fears of "marginalisation," one should not overlook the political and social implications of Hong Kong's strong economic integration with the mainland, for it will no longer be Hong Kong's own political dynamics but rather the development of China's modernisation that will be the most significant. Apparently, prominent figures in Hong Kong share Beijing's conservative stance towards democracy and human rights issues. Closer economic integration with the mainland can only be expected to strengthen such a tendency.

But the notion of Hong Kong the economic city whose citizens have no interest in politics is inaccurate. Hong Kong's aspiration for democracy is strong and unequivocal. A majority of voters have cast their ballots for pro-democracy parties and groupings in Legco elections. Paradoxically, however, the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong remains fragmented in terms of personalities, tactics and visions. None of the existing pro-democracy parties and groupings and their leaders command adequate moral standing and political capital to take the lead. It is not uncommon for the pro-democracy civil society groups to manifest their scepticism towards the parties and their aversion to electoral politics. The repercussions of such a state within the pro-democracy movement are twofold. On the one hand, diversity and plurality have rendered the movement more dynamic and harder to control and co-opt by the powers-that-be. On the other hand, consensus-building is harder to achieve against the backdrop of the rifts and mistrust within the movement.

Hong Kong, of course, has witnessed massive turnouts in pro-democracy demonstrations. Such mobilisations have been short term, ad hoc and reactive to unpopular government initiatives. To the extent that the media is free to report and comment on public affairs, the opposition has the power of publicity, which could be effective if used with a sense of topicality, but this power is too weak.

Hong Kong should take pride though for having nurtured a democracy movement which is strongly committed to universal suffrage, united in opposition to speaking truth to autocracy, swift in mobilisation, diverse in terms of ideological outlook and innovative in strategies. The strengths of the movement, in fact, lie in this unity in diversity, or diversity in unity. Any attempt to dominate or purify the movement will be self-defeating.

Meanwhile, 10 years after the transition, Hong Kong still has an undemocratic government. The policymaking process is by no means transparent and fair to the citizenry at large. While democracy is not a panacea, it has become clear that there will not be a free and fair society without political equality. The struggle for democracy will continue to shape much of Hong Kong's political landscape in the coming years.

What pro-democracy activists must be concerned about is that Hong Kong's transition from a British colony to a SAR of China under "one country, two systems" has neither resulted in the activation of civil society nor the empowerment of its citizenry. Rather, as a result of the combined effects of autocratic rule and the economic absorption of Hong Kong into the mainland, Hong Kong appears to suffer from a demoralising state of mind akin to "learned helplessness," which is getting worse as Hong Kong's political and social reforms are stalled. In reality, there is a pervasive sense of political inefficacy in Hong Kong society at large. While one may still prefer to believe in the mysteries of "one country, two systems," the experience over the last decade has called for some rethinking in Hong Kong.