China forfeits high ground
The Japan Times
May 22/04
By HARVEY STOCKWIN
HONG KONG -- From 1842 to 1997, with two exceptions, British governors of Hong Kong avoided democratic reform. In the 20th century they did so believing that China would react badly if they enacted it.
Now China has proved beyond a reasonable doubt how prescient those British governors were to calculate, and be cowardly, in this way. China has reacted badly, squashing Hong Kong hopes of sensible and overdue democratic reform -- even though China has now regained sovereignty over Hong Kong, and to veto democratic reform is against China's self-interest, let alone Hong Kong's.
Ironically, Chinese spokesmen, including Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, once again excoriated Hong Kong's former British rulers for never instituting democracy here, without apparently noticing that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was doing the very thing for which they were criticizing the British, and postponing meaningful democratic changes into the never-never land of the distant future. The same spokesmen insisted on the new Communist Party line that democracy was flourishing as never before in Hong Kong under Chinese sovereignty.
The truth is that Hong Kong's intense longing for democratic progress, so that the next chief executive is elected by universal suffrage in 2007, and the 2008 Legislative Council (Legco) is wholly directly elected, has been indefinitely frustrated. The process was basically simple, though at times verbally convoluted.
First, the Chinese government aborted the Hong Kong government's promised consultation with the public on the reforms seemingly promised in the Basic Law, and insisted that a hastily appointed "task force" of three government officials consult Beijing instead.
Then on Feb. 10, as the task force returned from its first visit to the capital, the CCP, through a Xinhua statement, effectively gave notice that it would veto the advent of universal franchise in 2007 and 2008, and that the promised "high degree of autonomy" and "Hong Kong people ruling Hong Kong" were not all that they were assumed to be, while the stress in the "one country, two systems" formula must be on the "one country."
In a way this said it all -- but the CCP wanted to give the appearance of legality, even as it issued its own dictates. Next, came the softening-up process, as the contentious and emotional issue of patriotism was injected into the Hong Kong scene. The "China Whateverist" faction in the Hong Kong elite (whatever China says or does is right) were activated to give vent to their self-interested antidemocratic prejudices. Some of Hong Kong's democrats were assailed as unpatriotic traitors, with China hoping thereby to put them on the defensive.
On April 6, this gave way to the "interpretation" of the Basic Law, as the CCP announced how it would go about formalizing its proposed veto of instituting universal suffrage franchise in 2007 and 2008. It was hardly an "interpretation." The CCP actually awarded itself powers in addition to those described in the Basic Law. It thereby raised the possibility, damaging to the continued rule of law in Hong Kong, that the Basic Law could mean whatever China decided it should mean.
Finally, on April 26 came the actual veto itself. "Legality" required that the CCP, acting through the National People's Congress Standing Committee, issue a verbose decision of 1,141 words, when fewer were required. There would be no move to universal franchise in either 2007 or in 2008. Complex Legco voting rules would continue to serve "executive-led government," under a formula, which means that directly-elected Legco members cannot pass their own bills. There would be no further progress in changing the ratio of directly elected Legco seats representing the people to functional constituencies representing business and professional sectors.
In a nutshell, no worthwhile democratic reform would be permitted. Hong Kong would remain stuck in the colonial era, with the new Chinese colonial power possessing more powers of control than the British colonialists had chosen to exercise. But the Hong Kong government was told it could begin the now meaningless consultation process on reform that had been halted prior to Feb. 10.
It goes without saying that all these developments could easily turn out to be highly damaging to Hong Kong's further development. What often gets lost to view -- both here in Hong Kong and also in a China where there is no freedom of political expression and a tightly-controlled press -- is the fact that all these developments could end up being damaging to China's national interest as well.
For a start, these developments were, in a very real political sense, totally unnecessary. All that has happened is that the CCP has reduplicated powers that it already has -- and offended many Hong Kongers into the bargain. Put another way, the CCP has spent a lot of time and energy saying what cannot happen in 2007 and 2008 when there was little chance of those things happening in the first place, and the CCP already had the effective power, as distinct from the specific power, to veto democratic developments.
No rush to full universal suffrage was either possible or in prospect in the first place. All that has happened is that the CCP now has more roadblocks in place, so that no movement at all toward universal suffrage; no movement toward any change in the ratio of directly elected-functional constituency seats is possible, except in the unlikely event that the CCP approves it in advance. Once again, in its dealings with Hong Kong, the CCP has preferred to create a bludgeon, rather than rely on the more subtle use of powers it already possesses.
Instead of sensibly introducing some of Hong Kong's freedoms to ease the stifling control exercised in the mainland, the CCP prefers to try and introduce that sense of control into Hong Kong.
This brings us to the two great dangers that China itself faces as a result of its veto of Hong Kong's democratic advance.
First, the CCP is missing the opportunity to ease China's coming crisis by easing Hong Kong's. The abnormal rate of Chinese economic advance is unsustainable. Vast domestic discontents are bound to increase. The provision of employment opportunities is unlikely to meet the huge demand. The corruption bred by the CCP's monopoly of power also escalates discontents. The rich-poor, urban-rural, east coast-interior divides within China pose many vexed political problems. Yet as the CCP sustains a rigid authoritarianism, it risks dynasty-destroying explosions of mass discontent. The alternative would be to conduct a little modest democratic reform in Hong Kong, in the expectation that this could in time become a model for easing tensions nationwide.
Second, by conveying the image of "one country-one system" in relation to Hong Kong, the CCP is slamming the door shut on meaningful dialogue with Taiwan. Since Taiwan's democracy is a fact, this rigid posture will have one inevitable result: a war that will severely damage greater China's economic miracle. The alternative would be to sustain political experimentation in Hong Kong in hopes that this would encourage political experimentation in relations with Taiwan.
So, as China comprehensively vetoes democratic advance in Hong Kong, it is once again also thrusting itself in directions in which it should not want to go.
Harvey Stockwin has covered Asia since 1955.
The Japan Times: May 22, 2004
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