HOW BEIJING PLAYS ITS HAND: AS SEEN FROM HONG KONG

By Frank Ching
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In 1997, Britain returned Hong Kong to China after having governed it as a colony for one and a half centuries. China offered the former colony a policy of “one country, two systems”, promising that it would be governed as a Special Administrative Region with Hong Kong people administering Hong Kong while enjoying a high degree of autonomy with no change for 50 years.

Now that 12 years have passed, it appears clear that at the beginning the Chinese government did adopt a hands-off policy of not interfering in Hong Kong’s affairs, and even told its own people in both Beijing and Hong Kong not to interfere. This was intended to give the administration of the first chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa, a free hand in governing the SAR.

Thus, despite Beijing’s deep mistrust of the last British governor, all the policy secretaries appointed by Chris Patten were kept in place. The only exception was the office of attorney general, now renamed the secretary for justice, which saw the incumbent British official replaced by a Hong Kong Chinese.

The following year, at the first sessions of the National People’s Congress, China’s parliament, and of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the nation’s highest-level consultative body, that position was made explicit to Hong Kong delegates who sat as members. Then-president Jiang Zemin made it clear that “local deputies [to the NPC] would only represent the Hong Kong compatriots to participate in the running of state affairs on the mainland.”

The then-chairman of the CPPCC, Li Ruihuan, made similar remarks to its members, telling them they had no authority over the Hong Kong government. He also went as far as to say that CPPCC members could not argue that they wore two hats because every word they uttered was the word of a CPPCC member, not of a Hong Kong official.

Dozens of prominent local individuals, who had been appointed by the Central Government as “Hong Kong affairs advisers” in the 1990s, were thanked for their services and told that they were no longer needed. And, perhaps most significantly, the largest pro-Beijing political party, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong (DAB), which had been invited to the mainland every year since its formation in 1992, stopped receiving such invitations.

Despite such attempts by the Chinese government to bend over backwards to avoid interference, suspicions lingered. Thus, when the SAR government decided in 1998 to intervene in the stock market to fend off speculators who were attacking the Hong Kong currency, Martin Lee, founding chairman of the Democratic Party, charged that the decision was prompted by instructions from Beijing. “Can anyone believe,” he said, “that Mr. C. H. Tung would have dared to approve of this decision without express endorsement from Beijing, nay, without having been told to do so?” However, the next day, Mr. Lee withdrew his accusation and acknowledged that he had no evidence to back up his charge. Now, a decade later, it is clear that the decision was made by the Hong Kong government.

Autonomy Seems Restricted

But it is by no means clear that the Hong Kong administration is still in a position to make another major decision like that. For example, there is often speculation about whether the Hong Kong dollar’s peg to the United States dollar might be altered, or done away with altogether. But even though, in theory, such a decision is within Hong Kong’s sphere of autonomy, there is little doubt that whoever is the chief executive would not make such a major decision without first consulting Beijing.

This is because, in the intervening years, Beijing has become much more hands-on in the running of Hong Kong. The date when the change in China’s attitude occurred can be pinpointed with some precision: July 1,2003.

That was the day when more than half a million people took to the streets in Hong Kong at the height of the controversy over proposed national security legislation. The draft bill was meant to implement Article 23 of the Basic Law, which requires Hong Kong “to enact laws on its own to prohibit any act of treason, secession, sedition, subversion against the Central People’s Government” and other political offences.

There was certainly apprehension that the bill presented by the Tung administration would erode rights and freedoms. But Article 23 was also a catalyst that brought into the streets hundreds of thousands of people with pent-up frustrations who had been unhappy about the government for years for reasons including the Asian financial crisis, its handling of an avian flu outbreak, SARS, the economic downturn, high unemployment levels, negative home equity and other economic ills.

This massive expression of unhappiness took Beijing by surprise. In 2002, President Jiang had endorsed Chief Executive Tung for a the running of Hong Kong to him. But the protest made top Chinese officials realize that the chief executive was not doing a good job in governing second term, and the Chinese government had largely been content to leave Hong Kong and they decided that they needed a much more hands-on policy where Hong Kong affairs were concerned. Dozens of officials were dispatched to the city to discover what had gone wrong. They met with all sectors of society, including advocates of democracy, and sent reports back to China’s leaders.

In the end, Vice President Zeng Qinghong was designated as Beijing’s point man for Hong Kong affairs. Beijing also started to assert its influence in earnest, especially regarding political reform. In less than two years, Chief Executive Tung was eased out by being kicked upstairs and named a vice chairman of the CPPCC. And the DAB once again received annual invitations to visit the Chinese capital.

Many of Beijing’s early policies towards Hong Kong have been jettisoned. Thus, a few months ago, the pro-Communist newspaper Wen Wei Po reported that an agreement had been reached between the central government’s Liaison Office in Hong Kong and the SAR government on cooperation between the Hong Kong government and CPPCC members who represent the territory. The paper reported that Li Guikang, deputy director of the Liaison Office, had told Hong Kong members of the CPPCC that a mechanism would be established to allow them to assume a direct role in the governance of Hong Kong.

Despite Denials, Things Change

This report was officially denied by both the Hong Kong government and the Liaison Office, but it was clear that something was happening. In fact, both Mr. Li and Lau Siu-kai, head of the Central Policy Unit, were quoted as saying that the Liaison Office had been communicating with the Hong Kong government on the role of CPPCC delegates. They just denied that there was an “agreement.” At the same time, the current vice president, Xi Jinping, who has taken over the Hong Kong portfolio from his predecessor, urged local National People’s Congress deputies to support Chief Executive Donald Tsang and to provide ideas for the government. The exhortation by then president Jiang Zemin for deputies to avoid involvement in local affairs has gone by the wayside.

The change in China’s attitude reflected a change in its perception of Hong Kong. While in the early years Beijing believed that the “one country, two systems” policy could work as long as a chief executive whom it could trust to look after its interests was running Hong Kong, ever since 2003 it has wanted to ensure a higher degree of control over the former colony—all the while maintaining there was no interference in Hong Kong’s domestic affairs.

That is not the way it was supposed to be. And the more that Hong Kong people think there is no real autonomy, the louder will be the calls for genuine democracy, leading to a higher the level of distrust between Beijing and Hong Kong. This is certainly not good either for Hong Kong or for the central government.

China’s reputation is at stake here. The Sino-British Joint Declaration was lodged as an international treaty at the United Nations and the international community continues to watch what China does in Hong Kong to see if it can be trusted to keep its word. Although China’s rapid economic development has given it much more clout, it wants the world to see it as a responsible power willing to play its part in dealing with issues ranging from the global economic crisis to North Korea to climate change. It cannot afford to be labeled a country that breaks its promises, to either the world or its own people.

And so Beijing will probably try to behave in ways that avoid laying itself open to charges of violating the letter of the Basic Law while going against its spirit. Where election of the chief executive is concerned, the Basic Law says: “The ultimate aim is the selection of the Chief Executive by universal suffrage upon nomination by a broadly representative nominating committee in accordance with democratic procedures.”

What is feared is that the Chinese government will pack the “broadly representative nominating committee” with its supporters and use that body to sift out candidates it considers unacceptable. Hong Kong deputies to the National People’s Congress and Hong Kong members of the CPPCC will no doubt account for a sizeable portion of its membership. If the bar for nomination is set high enough, this system will make it unlikely that anyone not acceptable to Beijing can win enough committee votes to become a formal candidate for chief executive.

Actually, if Hong Kong members of the NPC and the CPPCC are meant to play a political role not just on the mainland but also inside Hong Kong, they should be elected by the people of Hong Kong. Currently, there is a rather unsatisfactory election system for NPC deputies, while CPPCC members are simply appointed by Beijing. If a situation was to be created whereby anyone appointed by Beijing automatically gained a position of influence in Hong Kong, that would be a severe erosion of the concept of “one country, two systems” and of “Hong Kong people administering Hong Kong.”

In April, Hong Kong was rocked by the disclosure that another mainland official, Cao Erbao, the head of research at the Liaison Office, had written an article in which he said that Hong Kong had not one but two governing teams. The article appeared in Study Times, which is published by the Communist Party. Though it was first published last year, it was not noticed in Hong Kong until the uproar about a political role for CPPCC members.

According to Mr. Cao, there was a governing team headed by the Hong Kong chief executive but, in addition, there is a “second governing team” that consists of mainland officials responsible for Hong Kong affairs. Mr. Cao wrote that all mainland officials involved in Hong Kong affairs, whether in the capital or elsewhere, together constitute such a team. However, his article appeared to be not so much a description of the post-1997 situation as a call to action.

That is because the article, rather than merely making an academic comparison of the British colonial system and the situation after the handover, was clearly written to reflect contemporary thinking. It was published on January 28 last year, that is to say, less than three months after the holding of the 17th Communist Party congress in Beijing. And it quoted what Hu Jintao, the party leader, had said about Hong Kong in his congress report. In particular, Mr. Hu told the body that “maintaining the long term prosperity and stability of Hong Kong and Macau is a major issue the Party faces in governing the country under the new situation.” 

Mr. Cao evidently had this “new situation” in mind. He advocated the training and deployment of a team of cadres in the mainland to carry out Hong Kong work, though carefully adding that this should be done without “interfering with affairs within the autonomy of the SAR.” But he also asserted there is a practical need to “handle the relationship between the central authorities and the HKSAR” and for the team of mainland cadres to carry out work in Hong Kong “openly as a legitimate governing team.” That is to say, his feeling—and presumably that of his superiors—is that such is not yet the case.

It appears, then, that the central government is continuing to tighten its grip, while insisting there is no interference in Hong Kong’s internal affairs.

Pandas Aren’t Enough

Within Hong Kong, sentiments are also changing. After 12 years of Chinese sovereignty—during which time Beijing has cultivated the SAR by sending it pandas, astronauts and rare animal species—there is a much stronger sense of Chinese identity than in the past. However, there is no lessening of the desire for freedom and local democracy.

This was made evident on June 4 of this year when the 20th anniversary of the Beijing massacre was marked. The annual candlelight vigil was attended by 150,000 people, with thousands more unable to squeeze into Victoria Park. And speakers demanded that Chinese leaders who called in the troops to crush peaceful demonstrators should be held accountable. The huge turnout on June 4 no doubt presages a big turnout for the planned July 1 march calling for a faster pace of democratization. The question is how Beijing will respond to such demands.

In 1989, in the wake of the Tiananmen Square protests, Beijing made Article 23 of the Basic Law tougher. After the massive 2003 protests, Beijing vetoed universal suffrage in 2007-2008. It has now promised that the chief executive can be elected by universal suffrage in 2017, and the entire legislature so elected in 2020, without making it clear what the electoral methods will be.

Beijing’s feelings can be divined by looking at events in neighboring Macau. There, the election to succeed the first chief executive, Edmund Ho, is uncontested. And Macau’s Basic Law, drafted two years after Hong Kong’s, contains no promise of a legislature constituted by elections of any kind, let alone by universal suffrage. The Portuguese, it appears, were not as insistent on this point as were the British.

But now the British are gone and the people of Hong Kong must stand on their own feet. If they press for genuine democracy for election of the chief executive, with no sifting out of candidates unacceptable to the Chinese government, how will Beijing react? And what if Beijing refuses to eliminate functional constituencies (special interest groups that select half the representatives), even when the legislature is supposed to be chosen by universal suffrage? The answers to these questions are unknown. But the likelihood is that Hong Kong’s quest for democracy will not be smooth despite Beijing’s promises.

Frank Ching is a journalist and analyst of Chinese affairs based in Hong Kong.

07/01/2009