In a “green paper” on constitutional development released July 11, the government outlined various electoral options it believes would conform to conditions set in the Sino-British pact for Hong Kong’s return to Chinese rule, which described free and fair elections as the “ultimate aim” of political reform. “There are several key issues,” says Chief Secretary Henry Tang, the No. 2 figure in government. “One is the timetable and a second is the roadmap.”
As expected, the report offers neither. Nor does it present discrete models for democratization that Hong Kong might opt to follow. Yet despite the document’s shortcomings, Hong Kong’s reform effort is both historic and potentially far-reaching. It constitutes the most comprehensive official attempt to implement meaningful local democracy on Chinese soil since Chairman Mao’s armies seized power and established the People’s Republic in 1949. Because Beijing holds veto power over what system Hong Kong adopts and who leads the city, the current democracy debate is also a barometer of political thinking inside China’s halls of power. Perhaps most importantly, the electoral system that evolves in Hong Kong will inevitably inform any future political opening across the border in China, probably well before the “one country, two systems” formula for local autonomy in Hong Kong expires, as stipulated in the Sino-British accord, in 2047. “Mainland China is also marching on [toward] democracy and the rule of law, so there should be convergence of policy of the two sides,” says Mao Yushi, noted pro-democracy scholar and chairman of the Unirule Institute of Economics in Beijing.
Hong Kong’s political landscape is divided into pro-Beijing and pro-democracy camps—the former seeking to limit the scope of suffrage, the latter wishing it to flower as vibrantly as possible. These rivals are at loggerheads over when elections will take place (with some wanting to delay that process into the 2020s), whether or not the legislature should retain seats earmarked to represent functional constituencies, and—most importantly—the process by which candidates for chief executive get their names on the ballot. The largest pro-Beijing party wants to retain the current system whereby a committee of 800 delegates mostly amenable to China decides who can and cannot run, whereas democrats want to expand the group in size and representation. Hong Kong’s mini constitution, the Basic Law, stipulates only that the selection committee must be “broadly representative”; the green paper sets the benchmarks of “wide support and sufficient legitimacy.”
China, as the Japanese would say, is the Shadow Shogun wielding real power behind the scenes. Tsang and his deputies are presumed to vet key moves with Beijing, while Chinese leaders miss few opportunities to reiterate their ultimate authority. In June, Wu Bangguo, head of China’s National People’s Congress, implied that the separation of executive, legislative and judicial powers as practiced in the West was unsuitable for Hong Kong. And in his speech to commemorate the 1997 handover on July 1, Chinese President Hu Jintao told an audience of Hong Kong dignitaries that national unity was of “paramount importance” and called for “gradual, orderly development”—code words for a go-slow approach to political reform. Beijing has an interest in promoting conformity. Millions of Chinese tourists now explore Hong Kong each year, and given that the city inspired capitalist economic reforms launched on the mainland in the late 1970s, the notion that its political evolution could foreshadow China’s own isn’t farfetched. Still, Hong Kong and Chinese officials categorically deny any linkage. “I don’t think political reform in Hong Kong has any relationship with the mainland,” says Chen Xinxin, secretary of the Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan Law Research Center at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing.
Critics of the government have denounced the report as a needlessly complex jumble. Indeed, it’s less a blueprint for democratization than a broad range of options—implying scores of possible permutations on the nature, scope and pace of political change. Civic Party leader Audrey Eu has accused Chief Executive Donald Tsang of engineering the report’s “mutilated form” and “purposely confusing the public so he can manipulate the results” of consultations set to take place over the coming months. The report and its appendixes—which together have the heft of a New York City phonebook—inspired one Hong Kong journalist at the news conference following its publication to liken it to an apothecary shop’s dizzying array of potions. “I’m confident that the public will not pick a poison out of the medicinal chest,” Tang, the government’s point man on political reform, shot back.
According to Tsang, the official consultation launched last week aims to identify a “mainstream view” on political reforms within the next three months. If that goes to plan, said Tang in his news briefing, the government will craft a specific democratization proposal that it hopes would prove popular locally, garner two-thirds approval in the local legislature and win acceptance from China’s central government. He also cautioned that, under the Basic Law, the legal authority to appoint Hong Kong leaders that rests with Beijing is “substantive … and not a formality”—meaning that it is within the power of Chinese leaders to derail political developments in Hong Kong not to their liking. That fact alone makes Hong Kong’s democracy debate important both within the city and for China’s own political future.
