SO FAR, SO GOOD—BUT NOT YET GOOD ENOUGH

By Frank Ching
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Ten years ago, Britain handed Hong Kong back to China amid general expectations that Beijing would crack down on the former British colony, throw pro-democracy politicians in prison, shut down newspapers and rescind the political rights of its citizenry.

A December 28, 1996 editorial in The New York Times, headlined “Farewell to Hong Kong 's Freedom,” on the election of Tung Chee-hwa as the first Chief Executive by a 400-member selection committee reflected this predominant line of thinking. “The rigged selection this month by China of the future chief executive and legislature of Hong Kong make clear that political freedoms will be severely curtailed if not entirely eliminated once China assumes control on July 1, 1997 ,” it said. “The remaining question is whether China will also crush Hong Kong 's bustling economy and independent judiciary.”

Ten years later, what is the situation? This is what the State Department had to say in its latest human rights report on Hong Kong , released in March 2007:

“The law provides for freedom of speech and of the press, and the government generally respected these rights in practice,” the report said. “International media organizations operated freely . Foreign reporters needed no special visas or government-issued press cards for Hong Kong .”

It added: “The law provides for freedom of assembly and the government generally respected this right in practice. The government routinely issued the required permits for public meetings and demonstrations.” And: “The Basic Law provides for freedom of association, and the government generally respected this right in practice.” Freedom of religion: “The Basic Law provides for freedom of religion, and the government generally respected these provisions in practice.”

If that is what Washington thinks, what is the view of the British, who handed Hong Kong and its people back to China in 1997? The latest six-monthly report to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, released in February 2007, stated this:

“At the end of this reporting period we conclude that the ‘One Country, Two Systems' principle has generally worked well in practice and that the rights and freedoms promised to Hong Kong in the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law continue to be upheld.”

Hong Kong was not a democracy when the British left, and it is not so today. But the independence of the judiciary has been maintained and the people have somewhat more democratic rights than before, with half the legislature now chosen through universal suffrage, while the others are chosen through a more restricted franchise. The Basic Law, Hong Kong 's mini-constitution, promises that the “ultimate aim” is the election of both the chief executive and the entire legislature by universal suffrage.

The British Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett, visited the territory in late May and declared: “ One country, two systems has worked….We share China 's deep satisfaction in what Hong Kong has achieved, and we are proud, too, of the British legacy which has played a crucial part.” But Mrs . Beckett also acknowledged that while the “more dire predictions” have not come true, “there have been some bumpy moments, politically and economically,” over the last ten years.

Those bumpy moments raise questions about the extent to which the letter and the spirit of the “one country, two systems” principle is being adhered to. Perhaps the biggest bump in the road came in April, 2004 when China's National People's Congress Standing Committee, reacting to a protest by well over half a million people on July 1, 2003 against anti-subversion laws, ruled out full democracy in elections scheduled for 2007 and 2008 and reneged on previous promises that Hong Kong could decide on its own when to elect the entire legislature through universal suffrage.

The British six-monthly report for this period quoted the American consul general in Hong Kong , James Keith, who described the NPCSC decision as erosion of the promised high degree of autonomy. It also recounted charges of political intimidation involving pro-democracy legislators.

In that report, the British government for the first time did not conclude that “one country, two systems” was working well in practice . However, subsequent British reports have gone back to declaring that “one country, two systems” was working well in practice.

It is necessary to realize that the phrase “a high degree of autonomy” has to be understood in the Chinese context. In other countries, such as the United States, citizens, say, of New York City take it as a matter of course that they can elect their mayors—even without the benefit of a specifically legislated “high degree of autonomy”. Hong Kong , despite its stated high degree of autonomy, does not have this right.

While demonstrations in Hong Kong calling for full democracy have been reported overseas, it is not widely appreciated that even after Beijing allows the chief executive to be chosen through universal suffrage, the central government will still reserve to itself the right to appoint—or not to appoint—whoever may be elected. The appointment of the chief executive, Beijing insists, is not a formality but a substantive power.

The central government issued a reminder of this on June 6, when Wu Bangguo, chairman of the National People's Congress, presided over a symposium held in the Great Hall of the People to mark the 10 th anniversary of the implementation of the Basic Law . Mr . Wu bluntly reminded Chief Executive Donald Tsang and other members of the audience: " Hong Kong 's administrative autonomy is not intrinsic . . . it is granted by the central government . How much authority the central government grants to Hong Kong, is [precisely] how much authority [Hong Kong] will get.”

During the recent election campaign, candidate Alan Leong, pointed out that, at present, the chief executive does not have the authority to decide who will serve in his cabinet. He can propose, but the ultimate authority lies with Beijing , which insists on the right to accept or reject any nominations from Hong Kong . Mr Leong proposed that the Basic Law be amended to allow the chief executive on his own to pick his cabinet members . For this, he was roundly condemned. The China Daily , the Chinese government's mouthpiece, warned that the proposal “smacks of a blatant challenge to the central government's authority.”

In the current debate on when and how Hong Kong will be allowed to elect the chief executive through universal suffrage, much discussion is focused on how to avoid a constitutional crisis if Hong Kong elects someone whom Beijing then refuses to appoint.

To forestall such a crisis, Beijing and its supporters in Hong Kong are now exploring means to ensure that a screening mechanism is in place to ensure that each candidate for chief executive is acceptable to the central government before he or she can be formally nominated. Many decry this move as being in itself essentially undemocratic, but this debate is likely to be continued in the next few years, since Chief Executive Tsang has promised that the issue of universal suffrage will be resolved by the time his term ends in 2012.

Beijing 's desire to retain ultimate control over Hong Kong by deciding who its leaders will be does not mean that it wants to crack down on the former British colony—a move that would inevitably lead to international opprobrium. After all, in Beijing 's eyes, the city cannot be allowed to fail, or even to decline. Since Hong Kong was such an international success story under the British, the Chinese government wants to ensure that Hong Kong continues to serve the motherland—and set new records—now that it is under Chinese sovereignty. It would be a matter of national shame if Hong Kong were to decline after its return to China .

In fact, historically Hong Kong has been of great value to China . In the long years when China was isolated, Hong Kong was a window onto the outside world, just as it was a window into China for the rest of the world. More than that, it was a pipeline for whatever it was that China needed, whether it was information, technology or capital.

When the U.S. imposed an embargo on China during the Korean War, tiny Hong Kong was worth its weight in gold in seeing to it that medication and other vital supplies somehow made their way across the border. And after Deng Xiaoping opened up China in the late 1970s, Hong Kong manufacturers were the first to migrate to the Pearl River Delta.

Today, Hong Kong remains a key source of investment in China . It plays an important role in China 's trade with the rest of the world . In Guangdong province, there are more than 60,000 Hong Kong-linked companies employing 11 million workers. In addition, mainland enterprises have raised US$120 billion on the Hong Kong stock exchange and increasingly are using Hong Kong and its international know-how to venture into global markets. M ainland companies list on the stock exchange of Hong Kong both to raise capital and to earn a financial Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval since it is assumed that Hong Kong would not allow companies to list that are not properly run.

Of course, as the mainland has opened, Hong Kong no longer is the only gateway to China , but it retains tremendous value. Currently, Hong Kong still handles about half of China 's exports and accounts for a third of China 's foreign exchange earnings.

To safeguard Hong Kong's role in China 's economic development, Beijing does not want to see the territory's citizens assume an unaccustomed political role. That is why Chinese officials repeatedly say that Hong Kong is an economic city, not a political city. But Hong Kong 's seven million people increasingly want a voice in how their city is run. And China , in recognition of this, agreed as early as 1990 when the National People's Congress promulgated the Hong Kong Basic Law that the ultimate goal is to have both the chief executive and the entire legislature chosen through universal suffrage.

Indeed, Premier Wen Jiabao said earlier this year at a press conference after the annual session of the National People's Congress that Hong Kong's role as an international financial, shipping and trading center cannot be replaced by any other city in China. He also said, “Over the past 10 years, the central government has faithfully observed the principles of ‘one country, two systems' and ‘Hong Kong people administering Hong Kong with a high degree of autonomy,' and acted in strict accordance with the Basic Law . It has not interfered in the administration of the Hong Kong SAR Government.”

That assertion, however, is open to challenge. There is no way of telling to what extent the Hong Kong government has acted autonomously, since the government is not transparent and oftentimes it is not clear if a decision was made in Hong Kong or in Beijing.

For example, in 1998, shortly after the handover, the official Chinese government representative in Hong Kong, then known as the Xinhua News Agency, was in violation of Hong Kong 's privacy ordinance after it did not respond to a request from Legislative Councilor Emily Lau to view its files on her. No explanation was given as to why the Chinese government was not prosecuted. Did Hong Kong decide not to take legal action or was it told by Beijing not to do so? We do not know.

More recently, this past March, in a judicial review of the government's decision not to allow four Falun Gong members to enter Hong Kong in 2003, the judge concerned expressed surprise that no papers on the case could be located in the government. The Falun Gong members wanted to know why their names were on an Immigration Department stop list. The suspicion was that Chinese authorities had supplied the information and told Hong Kong not to let these people in. However, this could not be determined since the government had conveniently destroyed all relevant documents.

How do people in Hong Kong view the Chinese government? Surveys provide a clue. One survey, conducted by the Chinese University 's Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies in mid-May, found that 52.9% of the 811 people polled said they had confidence in the central government, the highest positive response since such surveys began in 2000. This was about three percentage points higher than the previous poll in October. (Some thought the high central government ratings were linked to the fact that Beijing recently sent two pandas to Hong Kong as gifts to mark the 10 th anniversary of the special administrative region.)

Significantly, however, while 54% were satisfied with the central government's overall performance, only 45.5% said they were satisfied with the way in which Beijing handled Hong Kong affairs. The same survey showed that, where national identity was concerned, 52.4% identified themselves as Hong Kongers while 36.5% said they were Chinese.

But sentiments are affected by new developments. In the aftermath of the Wu Bangguo speech, another survey, this time by the University of Hong Kong , found a drop in the level of trust in the central government. According to this survey, released June 14, only 50% of respondents said they had trust in Beijing .

There has been a marked change in the way people in Hong Kong view mainlanders. Before the handover, there was a tendency for them to feel superior to their mainland cousins, who were seen as country bumpkins. However, the economic downturn of 1997-2003 instilled a sense of humility in Hong Kongers, whose economy was revived largely by an influx of mainland tourists as well as special economic privileges extended by Beijing that exceed World Trade Organization obligations.

In spite of that, there is still a sense that the mainland is the source of many of Hong Kong's problems, such as tainted food—Hong Kong imports virtually all its food and much of its water from the mainland—polluted air and even pregnant women who come to Hong Kong to give birth in government hospitals, some of whom skip town without paying their bills.

A recent study by James Forder of Balliol College, Oxford, commissioned by Swire's entitled “Hong Kong – Ten Years On,” concluded: “In so far as the system has not worked perfectly, the issues of concern have had no direct bearing on Hong Kong's economic position or the prospects for its continued prosperity, nor the maintenance of the free-market system there… . ‘One country, two systems' can, therefore, be regarded as, economically, a striking success . ”

That is probably true and, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, that may be all that matters . But for the seven million people living in Hong Kong , that is not enough. For them, “one country, two systems” is not a complete success as long as they don't have the right to choose their own leaders . As long as the leaders of the “socialist” system choose the leaders of the “capitalist” system, there is a question as to whether what we are seeing is really “one country, two systems.”

Frank Ching is a Hong Kong-based commentator, writer and university lecturer who has followed Chinese and Hong Kong developments for many years. He is a former staff member of the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Far Eastern Economic Review, and in 1979 became one the first four American journalists based in China when opened the Journal's Beijing bureau. His columns now appear regularly in the South China Morning Post and other Asian newspapers.

07/01/2007