ELECTING THE ELECTION COMMITTEE BY UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE?

May 14

Posted by Suzanne in Letters from Hong Kong | 5 Comments | Print This Post Print This Post

      Pan-democrats are doing their best to regain the initiative before their anti-universal suffrage opponents can capture too much more media attention and before too many more veteran democrats signal their exhaustion.   Democratic Party founder Martin Lee’s proposal for the Chief Executive Election Committee was a wake-up call in this respect (May 2 post).  The new Alliance for True Democracy is rushing to draft alternatives ahead of its original summer timetable. The alliance came together in March and so far so good … maybe.   All pro-democracy groups and parties agreed to unite under its banner, but the most radical radicals (People Power/Frontier) are reserving judgment on the just announced preliminary blueprint.   

         The first draft:  “2017 Chief Executive Election – Initial Views for Consultation,” was issued on May 8, as a seven-point statement of principles and suggestions.*   Most striking is the idea that the much-maligned Chief Executive Election Committee should itself be elected by a universal suffrage election with all registered Hong Kong voters eligible to participate.  This is the 1,200-member committee with its four-sector design, stacked in favor of pro-business and pro-Beijing anti-democrats, that elected Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying in March last year.   Martin Lee’s suggestion that this committee, unreformed, might be retained to serve as a Nominating Committee served as the wake-up call.

RE-CAP

       Attention is focused on the next election for Hong Kong’s Chief Executive in 2017. Beijing has promised that Hong Kong’s long-cherished goal of “universal suffrage’ will be allowed for this election and Beijing has run out of ready excuses.  Or so everyone thought.  With each possible political reform benchmark (dating back to 1988), there emerged some reason for delay.   The promise of universal suffrage elections was nevertheless written into Hong Kong’s Basic Law constitution (promulgated in 1990).  Finally, in December 2007, after much agitation by pan-democrats for immediate redress, Beijing issued a formal decision.  Accordingly, Hong Kong “might” (not shall or must) elect its Chief Executive by universal suffrage in 2017, and the Legislative Council in 2020.   

         Made wiser by long years of experience, pan-democrats proceeded on the assumption that they had a commitment, but also maybe that they didn’t.  Suspicions have grown during the past two months as officials … current and retired, in Beijing and here … began making speeches about mechanisms and conditions.  All were evidently intended to disqualify pan-democrats in anticipation of a 2017 “universal suffrage” election (March 25,  April 2,  April 18 posts).   The Alliance for True Democracy’s preliminary blueprint was drafted in response to these recent Beijing suggestions and the fast-developing “anti-universal suffrage” campaign they have inspired.

THE SEVEN POINTS

         Officials continue to say that Beijing remains committed to its pledge for a universal suffrage election in 2017 …  albeit minus “confrontational” pan-democrats.  The Alliance is pushing back with its statement of principles:

1.)    The 2017 election should be conducted on the basis of one-person, one-vote, with a system that guarantees universal and equal rights to elect, be elected, and to nominate.

2.)    In the formal nominating process there should be no preliminary election or filtering mechanisms.  The right to elect, be elected, and nominate should not be affected by race, skin color, sex, language, religion, political or other orientations,  social origin, or economic criteria.  Non-objective conditions should not be established (like “loving China and Hong Kong” or “not confronting the central government”). Such considerations should be left to the voters themselves to decide when they cast their ballots.

3.)   Strive to form a broadly-based representative Nominating Committee elected by   Hong Kong people themselves on the basis of one-person, one-vote.  Its size is not mentioned.

4.)   Once the Nominating Committee is formed, a candidate can be nominated by one-eighth, but not more than one-sixth, of its members.  The aim is to encourage the participation of as many candidates as possible and discourage a few from monopolizing the competition.  Nominations should be made without regard to the economic or social sectors to which committee members might belong.  Each member should nominate only one candidate.  No limits should be set for the number of candidates.

5.)     Candidates can also be chosen via individual signature campaigns with a certain yet-to-be-decided number of signatures, to be verified by the Nominating Committee.

6.)    Once candidates are chosen, there might be two rounds of universal suffrage         voting.  If one candidate wins more than half the votes cast, that person is elected; otherwise a run-off would be held for the two candidates who receive the highest number of votes.

7.)   Candidates can have political party backgrounds.

          The proposal retains a Nominating Committee in deference to the Basic Law.  Article 45 stipulates that “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.”  Point Three of the Alliance outline nevertheless states that the Nominating Committee should eventually be abolished.  People Power radicals object to its presence and want the committee scrapped sooner rather than later.  

         The draft emphasizes that designated sectors should not “under any circumstances” have a role in nominating candidates.  This refers to the sectoral composition of the current Election Committee, which is based on the same occupational categories that also account for half the members of the current Legislative Council.  By long-standing demand, pan-democrats want all these distinctions by sector and occupation abolished in both the legislature and in the Chief Executive election.

           Point Seven of the outline also reflects a long-standing demand since Chief Executives currently cannot be members of political parties.   Pan-democrats see this restriction as an obstacle to developing party politics and party-led government, and remain undeterred by the very real prospect of electing an underground communist party member to the post.  An expanded draft of these proposals is forthcoming.

 POSSIBILITIES

         One pro-Beijing paper (Ta Kung Pao –  大公報 ) rushed into print the very next day with a rousing rejection.  The Alliance’s seven-point proposal is “seven points of confrontation,” declared the editors, but their chief objection seemed to be the re-designed Election Committee. “The Nominating Committee Should Not Be Produced By One-Person, One-Vote,” proclaimed an even bigger headline.

          Whatever their fate, however, the seven points may already have served an important purpose.  Like Benny Tai’s civil disobedience idea, the Alliance’s demand for a completely different kind of Nominating Committee gives notice to all concerned that Hong Kong’s democracy movement leaders can no longer be placated with token reform measures as in 2010.  This time around something more than incremental tinkering will be needed.

        Transposing the Election Committee into a Nominating Committee will nevertheless be a major headache, given that all of Hong Kong’s pro-business and pro-Beijing interests will be upended in the process.  Still, the idea of electing the Nominating Committee by popular vote has some interesting possibilities. Alliance convener Joseph Cheng Yu-shek could at least have some rhetorical fun with the idea, if only he and his colleagues were not trying so hard not to be extra provocative. 

           During the 2010 debate, for instance, a favorite tagline used by pro-government forum speakers was that Hong Kong should not aspire to a universal suffrage Chief Executive election because “even the United States elects its president indirectly” via the Electoral College.  The Alliance might say that it would be happy with such an “indirect election” … provided the Election Committee agrees to be bound by the winner-take-all decisions of the popular vote that by tradition produces American presidents.  But Joseph Cheng says his members don’t want to be accused (any more than they already are) of slavishly copying Western ways.

         In any case, the real stumbling block is the Basic Law’s Article 45 that pan-democrats are resolved to respect.  Article 45 ties universal suffrage to a Nominating Committee.  In fact, electing such a committee … of maybe about 500 members … might not be that difficult.  The main concern for pan-democrats is that direct elections need constituency lines and boundaries.  Drawing them would be a major time-consuming task … unless those already in existence could be pressed into service.  But unfortunately for pan-democrats, these are the small District Council constituencies, the very same that pro-Beijing and conservative forces now dominate, as proven most recently in the 2011 District Councils election. 

           The government and the main pro-Beijing political party also tried to use these constituencies, via the government’s 2010 electoral reform package, as building blocks for an eventual indirectly-elected mainland-style people’s congress system.  It follows that pro-Beijing forces and their conservative allies might actually warm to the idea of using the District Council constituencies to elect a Nominating Committee once they think through the possibilities.  Whether pan-democrats would want to take the risk in return for a popularly elected Nominating Committee is another matter … 

 * Alliancefor True Democracy … https://www.facebook.com/notes/ …  Chinese and English. 

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AN OLD LEFTIST FANS THE FLAMES

May 6

Posted by Suzanne in Letters from Hong Kong | No Comments | Print This Post Print This Post

           Martin Lee’s successors face many challenges as they go about their work of democratic institution-building.  Re-designing the Chief Executive Election Committee means confronting not only the interests of Hong Kong’s major established power players but the ideas being used to stoke popular passions as well.  Hence the new anti-universal suffrage campaign (April 18 post) also has aging champions and young successors, except that in this crowd it’s some of the old-timers who are playing the role of flame throwers. They might be ignored as blasts from the revolutionary past …  if only their message was not inspiring a new generation of patriotic vigilantes …  and if only the message did not derive from the current mainland narrative about Hong Kong’s political past, present, and future. 

PAST GRIEVANCES AND “EVIL REMNANTS”

          To make a long story short:  Hong Kong is a hotbed of  subversive Western influence.  It lurks everywhere and is manifested in many ways.  This is a favorite theme of Ng Hong-mun  [ 吳康民 ].   He was among those who wanted to be known as “traditional leftists” just after 1997, in order to distinguish themselves from latter-day converts.  Now in his mid-80s, Ng is a lifelong loyalist; former headmaster of a patriotic school (the British allowed some to exist); and long-time appointed delegate to the National People’s Congress before 1997, when those representing Hong Kong were attached to the delegation of neighboring Guangdong province.  He remains active in retirement and uses his Ming Pao Daily column to remind everyone of the one true way.

          Ng threw himself into the anti-universal suffrage campaign with his usual flair declaring at one forum that radicals had taken over Hong Kong’s democracy movement and he was very pessimistic about the outcome.  No good could come of it.  Beijing has the right to decide who should and should not be Chief Executive, he said.  Hong Kong voters can’t just elect whoever they want although they would if they could.  Western standards about universal and equal voting rights do not apply here because Hong Kong is not an independent entity as its Basic Law constitution makes abundantly clear (Ming Pao, Apple, Wen Wei Po, all April 7).

         Of Martin Lee’s abortive Chief Executive election proposal (May 2 post), Ng repeated the rationale circulating among patriotic pundits that Lee’s idea was not something he came up with on his own.  “For sure it was the result of discussion among some pro-democracy leaders and probably especially there were behind-the-scenes international backers pushing him to send up a trial balloon” (Ming Pao, April 15).  But then Ng really got into the spirit of things and for him that meant reverting to old-style revolutionary campaign mode.

       Ng Hong-mun used his Ming Pao Daily column (April 23) to accuse the British of nurturing undercover “backbone elements” or a kind of fifth-column among Hong Kong’s civil servants and the business community.  They were continuing to stir up all kinds of trouble …  part of the Western conspiracy to block China’s rise.  He actually began with a jibe at the Americans but this time he was aiming elsewhere. 

           The sun may have long-since set on the British Empire, wrote Ng, but it would be a “big big mistake” to think their influence here was over and done with.   More important than their trade, finance, and property interests, was the personnel they had trained and nurtured and left behind …  in the manner of the British internal and external intelligence agencies MI-5 and MI-6.   British influence had thus penetrated the community to remain hidden at many levels,  so that  “in every big Hong Kong political event their shadows can always be seen.” 

            He digressed to recount some of the patriotic community’s grievances from the old days when the British kept “files” on everyone, handy stores of information that could be pulled out and used against people at will.  He said this practice, learned from the British, continued.  He mentioned one of current Chief Executive CY Leung’s appointees who had to resign within days of his appointment after an old transgression from the 1980s mysteriously came to light.  That was the old British file system at work, being used by CY Leung’s enemies to discredit him. 

           Most of the hidden operatives remained undercover but some were known. Ranked first in Ng’s tiered echelon of provocateurs was retired civil servant Anson Chan [ 陳方安生 ] who had occupied the number two position in Hong Kong’s government, second to the Governor and the Chief Executive, before and after 1997.   She was now number one among the “evil remnants” [ 餘孽 ] of  British influence.  Under a barrage of similar criticism, she took early retirement in 2001 and has since joined the pro-democracy camp. 

           Ng then took aim at the pro-business Liberal Party and claimed it too was perpetuating the evil influence.  Otherwise why would its Election Committee members have caused trouble by casting blank ballots rather than vote for CY Leung in the March 2012 Chief Executive election?   There were many more, he wrote, less visible, third and four echelon types, lurking in the shadows, waiting for the right political moments to show their true colors (Ming Pao Daily, April 23; Wen Wei Po, April 24).

THE RESPONSE

        Ordinarily such allegations come only from pro-Beijing media sources.  But in the spirit of letting everyone have their say, others now host patriotic columns … along with the rebuttals.  Ming Pao’s editors couldn’t resist adding up the ages of the three principals in this altercation:  a total of 230 years among them for Ng, Anson Chan, and Liberal Party founder Allen Lee Peng-fei [李鵬飛 ]. Chan said it was a “great pity that 16 years after the return to Chinese sovereignty such prejudiced views still exist.” 

         Allen Lee, being Hong Kong’s most loquacious retired politician, wrote a column of his own.  He had featured in Ng’s diatribe without being named.  Thinking him to be a sympathetic figure, Beijing had tapped Lee for the honor of membership in Hong Kong’s post-1997 National People’s Congress delegation.   He didn’t last long, however, and has since also left the Liberal Party to become a (moderate) democrat.  Ng wrote that despite Beijing’s best efforts to befriend them, Liberal Party members had not returned the favor.            

          Lee reminded “old Mr. Ng” that when Governor Youde invited him (Lee) to join the Executive Council in 1985, special approval had to come from London because the position required a British passport, which he did not have or want.  He said the accusations against the Liberal Party were unfair and he knew them to be inaccurate.  Ditto those against Anson Chan.  Lee signed off with a rousing:  “Democracy, the rule of law, freedom, and human rights are Hong Kong’s true core values.  We don’t want false democracy … and whoever wrecks Hong Kongers’ core values will be the real sinner for a thousand years” (Ming Pao, April 24).   The “sinner” dig came from Beijing’s 1990s polemic against the last British governor for his unauthorized political reform project.

          Strong words but the tedious task of institution-building remains.  Allen Lee has just joined Anson Chan in relaunching her political reform think tank, now called “Hong Kong 2020.”  They will be working on ideas for the 2016/17 Legislative Council and Chief Executive elections, and the ultimate goal of a universal suffrage Legco election in 2020.

           As for Ng Hong-mun, he has been steeled in so many revolutionary struggles that a few singed whiskers and age-ist putdowns are unlikely to faze him … unless someone higher up decides that the old-style polemics don’t work very well here.  Determined to have the last word, he wrote again, answering back to say that Allen Lee had misrepresented the argument.  Not all pre-1997 civil servants are evil remnants, only a few.  They can be identified by their performance … how they behave at critical junctures … and whether they are patriotic or inclined to “stab you in the back.”  Such things might be beyond Allen Lee’s comprehension but they are “as bright as snow in the eyes of the masses” (Ming Pao, April 25).

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AN OLD CAT SINGES HIS WHISKERS

May 2

Posted by Suzanne in Letters from Hong Kong | No Comments | Print This Post Print This Post

 

 

          Martin Lee Chu-ming [ 李柱銘 ],  a founder of Hong Kong’s democracy movement, used the phrase about old cats getting too close to the fire with reference to himself.  He was embarrassed recently by jumping the gun and announcing his own first-draft proposal for electing a Chief Executive by universal suffrage in 2017, all on his own without consulting fellow pan-democrats.   The coming 2016/17 election cycle is supposed to mark an important way station along Hong Kong’s much-delayed journey to elected government and debate is already raging at the prospect.  Within two days, Lee had withdrawn his proposal and apologized as well saying he was like the proverbial old cat that sat too close to the fire and singed its whiskers [老貓燒鬚].    

        By way of explanation for his misstep, Lee cited political fatigue … after 30 years of protracted struggle … plus a cool reception from all sides within the democratic camp, and especially one critical opinion piece contributed by a 25-year-old Baptist University student.  The student, using a pen-name, challenged Lee not to play “Faust” by trying to strike a bargain with the devil  (Apple Daily, April 11).  

          The episode suggests why Hong Kong’s democracy movement may actually accomplish something “in the end,” whenever that might be and however defined.  There used to be a saying of the many early 20th century pre-communist reform efforts …  typically begun by one or a few idealistic individuals like Martin Lee and the late Szeto Wah.  The projects invariably died with the individuals who launched them.  Lee and Szeto, who founded the Democratic Party, represent the first generation of Hong Kong’s political reform leaders, but the project they began in the 1980s is not fading from the scene as their influence wanes.  Instead, they are being succeeded by many others who seem to have learned some important lessons about democratic institution-building along the way.  These others are now moving beyond the conservative confines of existing arrangements that Lee was ready to accept, as did Szeto Wah [司徒華] during the last political reform debate in 2010.

LEE’S PROPOSAL

         He focused on the chief institutional obstacle to introducing a “genuine” universal suffrage election for the Chief Executive in 2017, namely, the current Election Committee.  Hong Kong saw it at work most recently, in March last year, when it selected Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying  [梁振英 ].  The committee is a slightly expanded continuation of the first post-1997 body (defined in the Basic Law’s Annex I), with its four sections deliberately designed to empower conservative members of the business community and pro-Beijing stalwarts.  They dominate the 1,200 membership so completely that pan-democrats had difficulty mustering the 100+ individual signatures of committee members needed to field a single candidate (Jan. 16, 2012 post).  The Civic and Democratic Parties put forward candidates in 2007 and 2012, respectively, and can testify to the difficulties.  The two democrats succeeded in joining the competition but had no chance of winning. 

        Lee’s proposal actually contained two possibilities but the first was the focus of everyone’s attention including his.  It picked up where mainland official Qiao Xiaoyang left off in his March 24 Shenzhen speech (April 2 post).  Lee proposed to leave the Election Committee essentially as is and rename it the Nominating Committee, but with the proviso that it must name five candidates to contest the election.  Lee said this would at least guarantee that one democrat could be nominated as a candidate.   The voting public would then be able to choose via a universal suffrage election from among the five (Ming Pao Daily, April 10). 

        Qiao had not gone into any detail about the Nominating Committee itself except to assume there would be one, which is a Basic Law mandate.  According to Article 45:  “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.”  

          In fact, the Election Committee should be completely redesigned if it is to reflect anything like universal and equal voting rights.  Pan-democrats are currently discussing all kinds of options that would allow some sort of public participation in preliminary candidate selection … after which a Nominating Committee could be called upon to render judgment on the popular choices.  Yet here was Martin Lee inexplicably proposing not only to leave the stacked Election Committee in place but to grant it the sole right of nominee selection.

A STUDENT RESPONDS

           In 2010, Lee had seemed close to breaking with his Democratic Party over its moderate stands so his decidedly moderate proposal was puzzling to say the least.  Pan-democrats tried to be polite, leaving it to the anonymous student to voice their dismay at yet another ill-defined capitulation again coming from within the Democratic Party.

          The student’s essay, addressed “To Martin,” reminded him that after June 4, 1989 he had been unwilling to serve as a token democratic decoration and resigned from the Beijing-appointed Basic Law Drafting Committee.  He had continued to struggle during all the years since, even speaking out in support of the so-called “radical” referendum campaign that his Democratic Party as a whole refused to join in 2010.   Most recently, he had come out in favor of the Occupy Central campaign.  Yet Lee was now asking voters to accept candidates chosen by the same “small-circle” 1,200-member committee that pan-democrats had been railing against for over a decade. 

           Trying to understand why, the student hit upon the story of Faust and accused Lee of striking a bargain for advantage with an adversary who would allow no retreat or space for regret afterward.  Here and now, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was the adversary, laying down conditions before the contest for Chief Executive even began, with the aim of never allowing Hong Kong to conduct a genuine universal suffrage election.  Not to oppose the CCP’s condition would mean to remain its servile plaything forever. 

         The essay ended with a personal appeal:  Someone like you, who has made democracy your life’s struggle, should be in the vanguard of our movement … please join us  (Apple, April 11, 13).   Lee withdrew his proposal a day after the essay was published. 

            The loyalist camp expressed its regret.  For a time they could not believe their good fortune and thought they might not even have to debate the issue of reforming their Election Committee (which is going to be a mammoth task since it is derived in large part from the Legislative Council’s Functional Constituencies, frequently derided here with the old British reform term “rotten boroughs”). 

            Worried that too many others might also succumb to the pressures being created by the official anti-universal suffrage campaign and accept defeat too soon, pan-democrats are fast-tracking their proposals for a new kind of Nominating Committee.  Their main Alliance for True Democracy is set to announce a preliminary outline proposal within days.

(Next:  An Old Leftist Stokes the Fire)

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UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE: The Campaign Against …

Apr 18

Posted by Suzanne in Letters from Hong Kong | No Comments | Print This Post Print This Post

        Beijing and all concerned parties must be very worried about the new phase of Hong Kong’s campaign for universal suffrage elections.   The sequence is as familiar as pan-democrats’  long-standing demand.  But this time the “anti-democrats” have marshaled their forces more quickly than usual and rushed into battle while the other side is still drawing up name lists and designing its logos.

            The other side had also been moving with unusual speed since Professor Benny Tai Yiu-ting [戴耀廷] published his bright idea about civil disobedience in January (March 14, 25 posts).  He proposed to mobilize 10,000 people for a non-violent occupation of downtown central  Hong Kong.  It would be a last-ditch measure to be activated next year, aimed at pressuring the authorities into allowing genuine universal suffrage elections here if official proposals fail to meet international standards.   Plans took shape quickly as Tai and two friends, Professor Chan Kin-man [陳健民] and Reverend Chu Yiu-ming [朱耀明], set up a committee of three to orchestrate their Occupy Central campaign.  All three are veterans of all past campaigns dating back to the 1980s, all are moderates, all backed Albert Ho’s 2010 reform compromise, and all have concluded that Beijing will not be moved by anything but feet-on-the-ground popular pressure. 

          Pan-democrats also sent a delegation to advertise their frustration at the March meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Committee in Geneva, Switzerland, and they organized a new Alliance for True Democracy.  The alliance has brought all pro-democracy factions together and will map plans for the next phase of political reform.  Details must be finalized in time for the 2016/17 election cycle that is supposed to mark an important way station on  Hong Kong’s long march toward elected government.  Prof. Tai’s Occupy Central campaign would be activated in the event these plans fail to pass muster.

          At least for now, however, pan-democrats are being overshadowed by an aggressive no-holds-barred attempt to throw them off balance and nip their new campaign firmly in the bud.  The counter-campaign is addressing its message to all the key players in Hong Kong’s political arena and all pro-establishment partisans are being mobilized for the cause in one mighty push, from above and below, to discredit, discourage, and defeat.  It is also already beginning to register the desired effect.  If the current message is meant to convey the official bottom line and if it plays out as now being promoted, there will be precious little common ground.  Nor is there likely ever to be a universal suffrage election here except as defined by Beijing on its terms.

TARGETING THE IDEA

        Speaking like so many mainland political drill instructors, pro-Beijing opinion leaders are suddenly everywhere, trying to teach unruly Hong Kongers the civics lessons they and their children should be leaning via that national studies curriculum they rejected so vehemently last year.  The message is being presented in stark all-or-nothing terms.  There can be no alternative to the Chinese Communist Party’s unified “pyramid-shape” top-to-bottom rule.  To advocate political reform for China as Hong Kong democrats do is therefore, by definition, to advocate an end to CCP rule.  But to overthrow the party is a prescription for chaos because there is nothing to replace it.  The communist order’s collapse in the  Soviet Union is a case in point.  Democracy is a Western concept, only a few hundred years old … alien and un-Chinese.  It has never been one of Hong Kong’s core values.  Only a few people are behind the Occupy Central campaign.  Maybe the Americans are too, bent on breaking up China by provoking a “color revolution” like they did in central Asia after the collpase of Soviet communism.  Pan-democrats can only promote such ideas because there is freedom of political expression here, the implication being that free political expression has dangerous subversive consequences.

          Besides, representative democracy doesn’t work very well even in the West.  For reasons he has never fully explained, professor emeritus Lau Siu-kai [ 劉兆佳 ] is a staunch opponent of Western-style democracy …  so much so that his conservative opinion polls have served to underpin conservative Hong Kong government decisions against democratic reforms dating back to the 1980s.  It was Prof. Lau who, as head of the Hong Kong government’s Central Policy Unit think tank, made the famous prediction that no more than about 30,000 people here cared enough about the democracy movement to turn out for the July 1, 2003 protest march  …  when the actual figure was half-a-million.  He nevertheless persevered and has only just retired from his CPU post.

          Last week Prof. Lau featured in a full-page article introducing the latest book on his favorite topic:   Joshua Kurlantzick, Democracy in Retreat:  the Revolt of the Middle Class and the Worldwide Decline of Representative Government (Yale University Press, 2013).  Lau also said Beijing had too many other big global and national problems on its plate and could not be bothered compromising further with Hong Kong democrats bent on permanently marginalizing themselves from the national mainstream.   He said Hong Kong does not need to meet international standards for universal suffrage (meaning the  universal and equal right to vote and contest elections), as spelled out in Article 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, because Hong Kong is a special case (Wen Wei Po, April 9).

THE ANTITHESIS OF PATRIOTISM

            Beijing officials spoke out a few weeks ago on the specific qualification for Hong Kong chief executives:  they must “love China and love Hong Kong.”  Democrats raised a hue and cry saying they were being deprived of the right to contest the election in violation of international standards.  For those who thought there might be room for maneuver around this requirement …  like loving the nation but not the communist party as democrats like to say (April 2 post), another full-page interview set the record straight.  There can be no such thing as “abstract love,” declared the giant headline.  No way to love one and not the other.   Such an idea can only mean one thing:  “concrete opposition” to the party-led central government (Wen Wei Po, April 12). 

         The featured authority elaborating this declaration was long-time pro-Beijing labor union leader Cheng Yiu-tong [ 鄭耀棠]  a Hong Kong delegate to the National People’s Congress, member of the Chief Executive’s Executive Council cabinet, and among those assumed to be members of Hong Kong’s unacknowledged CCP branch.  He explained how tolerant Beijing had been. Hong Kong was a British colony for over a hundred years, but in the past decade the central government had acquiesced to local wishes and allowed electoral reform to proceed.  Yet pan-democrats, that is, “the opposition parties” had “raised the banner of abstract love to bring a concrete end to one party dictatorship.”  Such people could not be allowed to participate in government affairs.

             Of course, said Cheng, there was always the possibility that some in the opposition camp might profess true love.  But for those who do not and go so far as to advocate an end to one-party dictatorship, Beijing’s worries are entirely legitimate.  Patriotic redemption is apparently possible.  But to achieve it pan-democrats will have to abandon an article of faith (about mainland political reform) that has sustained their movement since 1989.  The choice is calculated to fracture their movement even further.

FROM BELOW: Targeting People Power

          The Occupy Central trio of moderates is correct to conclude that their good intentions in 2010 led nowhere (which should have been obvious at the time given the design of the government’s election reform package).  They are also correct to conclude that the one thing Beijing  worries most about is the threat of instability here since, thanks to one-country, two-systems, it cannot be contained with mainland-style “hard power” methods.  Hence one of the first things the anti-universal suffrage campaign did was to sponsor an opinion poll  …  designed to show what the public thought about 10,000 people “paralyzing” Hong Kong’s downtown financial district.

          With much fanfare, the main pro-Beijing political party (Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong or DAB) and its youth wing called a press conference to announce the findings:  70% of 1,000 respondents definitely do not like the idea.   DAB leaders claimed it was a random sample but were honest enough to admit that 70% of their respondents also just happened to be 50 or older …  the age group most receptive to conservative scare-mongering and the age group targeted by the DAB in building its district-level constituencies.  DAB leaders, young and old, nevertheless challenged Occupy Central organizers to abandon their project forthwith.  There were many reasons:  it would surely mean losses for the economy; it would harm Hong Kong’s reputation as an international financial center; it would disrupt relations with the central government; do nothing for political development; and would no doubt lead to violence (Wen Wei Po, April 10).    To reinforce the message,  Prof. Lau Siu-kai also warned there would very likely be violence, and the police chief came out to say his force was prepared for all contingencies, protesters would not be allowed to block city streets, and so on.

      In fact, the dangers of physical disruption are already being felt but they are not coming from pan-democrats.  This problem is not new.  Soon after 1997, the “old uncles” … retired leftist workers …  who like to hang out in Victoria Park were the chief culprits.  They enjoyed shouting abuse and throwing stones at pro-democracy Sunday afternoon speakers and for a time drove them from the weekly event held there.  Now a new generation of patriotic avengers is making its presence felt.  They were first noticed during the New Year marches for and against Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying.  One of their number made history by striking the first blow in defense of the motherland and celebrated his achievement with a “V” for victory sign after being found guilty of assault (Jan. 9, 2013 post).

        The groups making the most noise call themselves Loving Hong Kong Power [愛護香港力量 ] and Voice of Loving Hong Kong [ 愛港之聲 ].  For this crowd there is no middle ground.  Their mission is to attack what they regard as anti-Beijing subversion whenever they see it and members are showing up, courtesy of Facebook, wherever pan-democrats gather.   Two dozen hecklers crashed the first meeting of the Alliance for True Democracy on April 7, shouting abuse and complaining about not being invited.  They created such a commotion that the meeting had to be abandoned after campus security guards refused to intervene. 

         The same thing happened last Saturday, April 13, at an Occupy Central forum also held on a university campus, although organizers soldiered on.  The intruders created another rowdy scene claiming the Occupy Central campaign had provoked them beyond endurance.  Some arrived “in uniform” … white windbreakers emblazoned with red dragons.  They unfurled huge Chinese and Hong Kong flags to demonstrate their patriotism and stood on desks and chairs to dramatize their message.  But their best photo-op pose was a fascist-like solute of accusation pointed in the direction of the speakers’ lectern (Wen Wei Po, Ming Pao Daily, Apple, all April 14).

FROM ABOVE:  The Siren Song of Compromise

       What could be more reassuring amid all the noise than soothing voices of calm and reason.  And who better to provide it than a kindly silver-haired retiree:  Elsie Leung Oi-sie [ 梁愛詩  ].   She is a life-long pro-Beijing partisan, was a founding member of the DAB in the 1990s, served as post-1997 Hong Kong’s first Secretary for Justice, is now a member of Beijing’s advisory Basic Law Committee, and speaks out as needed with patriotic advice on controversial legal matters.  Not to worry, she said.   No need to get everything done all at once.  “Don’t see 2017 as the final year for establishing a perfect democratic, universal suffrage system.”   First introduce a plan that two-thirds of the Legislative Council will accept and establish the principle of one-person, one-vote.  Later the system can be improved gradually (Ming Pao Daily, April 8).   To which pan-democrats reply that the first time they heard the refrain about gradual and orderly progress was in 1988, and they’ve been getting the run-around ever since.

        Bernard Chan [ 陳智思 ] is another well-spoken elite-level member of the pro-Beijing establishment.   Among other things he is a delegate to the National People’s Congress and claimed he heard no mention at the March meetings about the need for a prior filtering mechanism to tap suitable Chief Executive candidates.  But he called the controversy “a storm in a teacup.”  Like Elsie Leung, he said that “2017 will not necessarily be an end point where our political development is concerned.” And besides, it was all part of the greater Chinese national development project (South China Morning Post, March 22).  Lau Siu-kai gave yet another interview in which he, too, repeated what must be the new official line, namely, that 2017 should not be seen as the end game (SCMP, April 9).

               If official voices of reason are serious about their message they should spell out the official plans for Hong Kong  society five, 10, 15 years down the line.  Democratic hearts can only be put at ease if someone calls off the patriotic vigilantes and addresses the long-term prospects for Hong Kong’s “freedom of political expression.”  Old-time patriotic pundits are happy though.  Their tea house gossip says it all.  They already sense that, as in 2010, big business and the diplomatic community … “especially the British and Americans” … are quietly rallying to Elsie Leung’s message … “for the sake of  Hong Kong’s stability.”   And when that happens, as in 2010, pan-democrats will be sure to acquiesce.  The only question is whether they will settle for an electoral reform package that is as detrimental to their interests as the one moderates accepted in 2010, without any mention of Hong Kong’s long-term political prospects while two-systems fade into one.

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BETWEEN THE LINES: More on that Speech by Qiao Xiaoyang

Apr 2

Posted by Suzanne in Letters from Hong Kong | No Comments | Print This Post Print This Post

       Beijing’s preemptive strike against Hong Kong’s reviving political reform movement deserves a little more scrutiny.  The sudden revival caught everyone by surprise including local activists themselves and national leaders used the annual National People’s Congress (NPC) meetings in Beijing to lay down some warning markers.  These appeared most prominently in the speech by Yu Zhengsheng [兪正聲 ], one of the seven all-powerful men who preside at the topmost level of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) hierarchy (March 25 post).  But he was addressing an especially invited gathering of loyalists.

       To make sure everyone else got the message as well, it was repeated by a ranking member of Beijing’s Hong Kong-management team, Qiao Xiaoyang [喬曉陽 ], who traveled south to the border town of Shenzhen for the purpose.  This has become standard practice when important political messages need to be conveyed.   Qiao heads the NPC’s Law Committee and specializes in matters related to Hong Kong’s Basic Law constitution.  Pro-Beijing and other pro-establishment members of Hong Kong’s Legislative Council, close to 40 in all, were invited to hear Qiao deliver his lengthy speech on March 24 (March 25 post, update).  Pan-democrats were not invited.  Nor was the media, but a copy of the speech was subsequently posted on the website of Beijing’s Liaison Office here(http://www.locpg.hk/big5/shouyexinwen/201303/t20130327_7136.asp).

THE MESSAGE:  HARDLINE

            On the surface, Qiao’s line was tough and uncompromising.  And unfortunately for its long-term prospects, the lower-level council foundations of Hong Kong’s political reform project are also being completely overshadowed by the top Chief Executive prize.  Pan-democrats had campaigned for 2012 to be the year of universal suffrage since that was the only year when both the Legislative Council (Legco) and the Chief Executive would be up for election.  The latter’s mandate is renewed every five years; Legco’s every four.  Beijing preempted that demand, decreeing instead that such elections for the Chief Executive could not occur until 2017, with Legco to follow in 2020.  Hence attention is currently focused on the next, 2017, Chief Executive election to the exclusion of all else.

         Qiao Xiaoyang began by acknowledging the controversy that erupted after Yu Zhengsheng’s speech limiting eligibility to those who “love China and Hong Kong” [愛國愛港 ].  “Opposition groups,” Beijing’s term for pan-democrats, had immediately concluded that they were being discriminated against and automatically disqualified from the contest before it began.   Suspicions were reinforced that Beijing would not tolerate anything like internationally recognized norms for a Chief Executive election.

          Explanations were clearly needed and Qiao tried his best but ended up raising more questions than he answered.   He said Beijing meant to disqualify people who oppose the central government.  Opposing meant those who do not accept one-party rule in China and advocate an end to its unitary CCP-led government.  Such people could not serve as Hong Kong’s Chief Executive.  He named names:  Audrey Eu of the Civic Party and the Democratic Party’s Albert Ho.

       Poor Albert:  damned either way.  Qiao cited the three-part series Albert Ho published in Ming Pao Daily (2011:  May 10, 11, 12), when he was still struggling to justify the political reform compromise decision he had made the year before (June 1, 2011 post).  Critical democrats were not impressed either in 2010 or 2011, and neither was Qiao in 2013, albeit for different reasons.  He said Albert Ho had written “in black and white” that “for Hong Kong’s pro-democracy parties, their opponent is the CCP and the central government it leads, which governs all of China from Beijing.”  There it all was, summed up in a single sentence.

        Concerning specific procedures for tapping the correct candidates, a Nominating Committee would separate wheat from chaff.  Voters could then exercise their right to choose. Beijing would formally approve the result or not as it chose.  Rules and methods had all been spelled out in the Basic Law and subsequent central government decisions, in 2004 and 2007.  They must all be followed. 

       Qiao’s message was also wrapped in the usual reminders about “one-country, two-systems.”   For extra weight, he cited the authority of the late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping who oversaw all the pre-1997 preparations for Hong Kong’s transfer from British to Chinese rule.  Deng had said that the people ruling Hong Kong must “love the nation and love Hong Kong,” and he doubted that universal suffrage elections could produce such people.

BUT WHAT IS POLITICAL LOVE?

          It was only as Qiao tried to translate the concept for cross-border use that he ran into trouble.  He claimed he was so worried about his presentation that he hadn’t been able to sleep properly the night before.  What he seemed to be saying, in effect, was that Beijing had realized it could no longer draw the old definitive lines between patriots and others. Hong Kong had reached a crossroads, he said.  So something more than the old formula would be needed to meet expectations and calm troubled waters.   But if Qiao was speaking for Beijing party-central, which presumably he was, then his Hong Kong listeners are not alone in their uncertainties.  He appeared to be feeling his way as one after another he eliminated the old reasons for calling pan-democrats bad names, like traitor and running dog … stock phrases from pro-Beijing editorial writers’ repertoire.

          Qiao said he knew many Hong Kongers do not like the CCP or socialism, but “that is normal.”  He wasn’t asking them not to criticize Beijing and he wasn’t asking them to accept its ideology.  Pan-democrats had been treated with great tolerance.  No one had been sent to jail for anything they said or did, a great fear before 1997.  No pro-democracy leaders had emigrated either.  On the contrary, many had been elected to Legco and appointed to government committees. 

           He also acknowledged that political “love” and “opposition to the center” would be difficult to define in law, much less enforce in practice.  It was just “something for people to feel in their hearts.”  Hence all that was left to qualify as a Chief Executive candidate, he kept repeating, was not to oppose the central government by which he meant accept the reality of Beijing’s one-party unified mainland rule.

 A NEW COMMITTEE

         Qiao also mentioned the Nominating Committee that would vet candidates.  He reminded listeners of his June 7, 2010 universal suffrage speech (just before Albert Ho’s famous climb-down on political reform).  In that speech, Qiao had declined to go into detail about procedures for the 2017 election, saying simply that they would be “completely different” from the election committee method that had been used to choose chief executives since 1997.   Well, not completely …

        Beijing is thinking in terms of something like the Election Committee.  But Qiao told his Shenzhen audience that the procedures for selecting candidates will have to be different from the past practice of simply collecting a certain number of nominating signatures from committee members.  “Therefore, it will be necessary to decide whether or not the methods used by the Nominating Committee to nominate candidates are actually democratic.  This is entirely something that can be discussed rationally in search of a consensus.”

MARGINS FOR MANEUVER

          None of this is going down very well among pan-democrats, of course.  Qiao should have invited all of Legco to Shenzhen or he should have delivered his message to us here, they say.  They also have many plans for public participation in the nominating process and every reason to fear an officially-designed Nominating Committee   But there were also some openings in Qiao’s presentation that pan-democrats might exploit to their advantage. 

         Most obvious is the apparent redefinition of political love.  Always in the past the term “love China,” translated in English as “patriotic,” was used with reference, for example, to the local community of tried and true pro-Beijing partisans who followed the party center’s every twist and turn.  Soon after 1997, they coined the term “traditional leftists,” to differentiate themselves from the newly-converted who were (and still are) regarded as opportunists and power-seekers.  In contrast, Qiao’s definition is far less demanding.  It sounded more like the old 1950s American loyalty oath questions  …  when overzealous government investigators wanted to know whether or not a suspect advocated the overthrow of the United States government.

         In fact, the wisdom of continuing to use slogans (dating from June 4, 1989 days) demanding an end to Beijing’s one-party dictatorship has been debated among pan-democrats for years.  It became an issue most recently in 2010, at the last June 4 candle light vigil presided over by Szeto Wah before his death a few months later.  So if that’s really all Beijing is demanding as proof of love, then many pan-democrats might qualify.

         Similarly, Qiao’s comments on the need for “democratic procedures” in the nominating process suggest many possibilities.  These include both the design of his proposed Nominating Committee, and the integration of democrats’ plans for popular primaries, on-line preferential assessments, etc.

        Even more important, however, is the opening Qiao created with his comment (paragraph 5) about the permanent nature of “one-country, two-systems.”  He cited a favorite mainland saying, used often before 1997, about well water not mixing with river water.  It meant: Hong Kong must not try to subvert the mainland with ideas about democracy.    Activists were enthusiastic about the possibility of serving as a bridgehead for democracy in China across the 1997 divide.  But then Qiao went on to emphasize his point by saying, “neither side of one-country, two-systems will change, which means preserving Hong Kong’s original capitalist system and preserving China’s CCP-led system of socialism with Chinese characteristics.” 

        Some clarifications are definitely in order here.  For one thing, when mainland officials speak in this way they seem to be referring to Hong Kong’s capitalist economic system only.  CCP-led socialism includes the CCP-led political system as well.   But they never mention how Hong Kong’s never-ending capitalist system will be governed … especially important in light of its ill-defined 50-year Basic Law guarantee.

        Similarly, the other half of the old saying has not been mentioned for years:  river water is also not supposed to mix with well water.  Yet mainland political ways are now intruding here at many levels and at the behest of many messengers.  The dikes may not have been breached but cracks are appearing nonetheless.  Pan-democrats might therefore begin by proposing a trade off:  they will stop advocating the democratization of CCP rule in China if Beijing agrees to amend the Basic Law’s Article 5, thereby guaranteeing that Hong Kong’s political way of life like its economic system can also remain unchanged forever.

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PATRIOTS vs. DEMOCRATS: The Universal Suffrage Campaign Begins Again

Mar 25

Posted by Suzanne in Letters from Hong Kong | No Comments | Print This Post Print This Post

          Professor Benny Tai re-launched the campaign on January 16, with his call for civil disobedience if the coming next stage of political reform did not produce arrangements that met international standards for universal suffrage elections.  The next stage concerns elections for Hong Kong’s Chief Executive and for the Legislative Council.  Beijing has promised that universal suffrage “may” be used for the coming Chief Executive election in 2017 and for the legislature in 2020.   Tai meant universal and equal voting rights for everyone, with equal rights also to nominate and be nominated (March 14 post).   Hong Kong democrats fear that Beijing’s definition will be different … probably more like the kind of communist party-dominated universal suffrage elections now prevailing on the mainland.

         Tai’s idea was exactly what Hong Kong’s anxious faction-ridden democracy movement needed … although he didn’t realize it at the time.  The response seemed to come out of nowhere, surprising him as much as everyone else when it proved to be just the right idea at the right time.  Minds and energies re-focused on a topic that has been talked to death (the last campaign only ended in June 2010), divided practitioners, and produced one defeat after another.   Suddenly Tai was the man of the hour and within weeks the impact had moved far beyond him.  Reverberations were felt in Beijing at the annual March meetings of the National People’s Congress, in Geneva at the annual hearing of the United Nations Human Rights Committee, and back home in Hong Kong where pan-democrats had been dithering for months about what to do next and when to begin.  

PLAYING CATCH-UP:  BEIJING DEFINITIONS

        Their opponents seem to have been caught off guard by pan-democrats’ sudden success in reviving the universal suffrage issue. Hong Kong’s new Chief Executive, Leung Chun-ying, has yet to begin discussing official proposals whether informal or otherwise for any kind of electoral changes.    But if Beijing’s promised universal suffrage schedule is to remain on course, such reforms need to begin ahead of the next election cycle (District Councils, 2015; Legislative Council, 2016; Chief Executive, 2017).

       Beijing consequently took the initiative by reminding everyone of the ground rules that Beijing expects to be followed.  This was done at the annual meetings of the 3000-member National People’s Congress (NPC) and its honorary companion, the 2000-member Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).  Outsiders like to refer to the NPC as Beijing’s rubber-stamp law-making body.  The mainland media likes to bill the CPPCC as China’s “most extensive patriotic united front organization.”

       Besides ceremonial formalities that this year featured installation of a new central government leadership team, the annual meetings are occasions for speeches, motions, and discussions on burning issues of the day, conducted within each provincial delegation.  Hong Kong’s 36 NPC deputies were selected late last year (Dec. 27 post).   The appointment of over 200 local CPPCC delegates followed in January.  Highlights of their Beijing experience, at least as reflected in newspaper headlines back home, were the meetings with Yu Zhengsheng and Zhang Xiaoming.

         All members of both delegations are either traditional-type pro-Beijing loyalists or pro-establishment conservatives.  It followed that among their greatest concerns was how to finesse the next, 2017, Chief Executive election since far from fading away, Hong Kong pan-democrats were reviving to fight another day and had not forgotten Beijing’s promise for universal suffrage elections.

         Yu Zhengsheng [兪正聲 ]  spoke to the issue at a close-door joint gathering of Hong Kong and Macau CPPCC delegates.  He is a member of the topmost seven-man Chinese Communist Party Political Bureau and his message, as reported by those who heard him, was blunt …  the same as such messages have always been in times of heightened mainland-Hong Kong tension like now. 

          He said that Hong Kong must not be used as a base or bridgehead for trying to subvert the mainland’s political order.  He also said that when electing a Chief Executive by universal suffrage, if forces prevail that oppose the central government, it would be bad for Hong Kong and for the mainland.  The long-term ruling power, he said, must “love the nation and love  Hong Kong” [ 愛國愛港 ], meaning it must be patriotic.  This is the common term used with reference, for example, to patriotic pro-Beijing partisans.  Yu Zhengsheng said their rule was vital for improving people’s livelihood, developing the economy, and reviving the Chinese nation.  Since Hong Kong and Macau did not have one-party rule like the mainland, with its unified structure of authority extending pyramid-like from the top to the base, it was especially important for everyone in both regions to unite behind their Chief Executive.

          He also called on his listeners to oppose the few extremists responsible for unhealthy trends and evil practices.  These included waving the old colonial British flag and calling for Hong Kong independence.  Such behavior should not be allowed to continue unchecked (Ming Pao Daily, Hong Kong Economic Journal, Wen Wei Po, March 7).

         Zhang Xiaoming [張曉明 ] followed in kind.  Zhang has recently arrived from Beijing to head its Liaison Office here.  There he worked in the central government’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office.  His transfer is part of the leadership succession reshuffle that has elevated Xi Jinping  [習近平 ] to the top party, government, and military posts in Beijing.  Xi previously headed the party center’s Hong Kong oversight working group, set up in 2003, and Zhang was a trusted lieutenant.  His transfer here appears to be aimed at integrating Hong Kong more efficiently within the mainland bureaucratic power grid under Xi’s overall command.

         In any case, Beijing’s top decision-makers are all reading from the same script with respect to Hong Kong elections.  At a meeting with  Hong Kong’s NPC delegates, Zhang Xiaoming said, concerning the 2017 Chief Executive electoral arrangements, that there would have to be some sort of “filtering” process to identify acceptable candidates.  Everything is preliminary at this stage but he seemed to be assuming that something like the existing conservatively-designed 1,200-member Election Committee would become the filtering agent. 

           Zhang also said that candidates must meet three conditions: be patriotic (love the nation and love Hong Kong), have Beijing’s trust, and be accepted by the people of Hong Kong  (Ming Pao Daily, Apple Daily, Wen Wei Po, March 9).  These conditions would automatically rule out pan-democrats because they do not qualify as patriotic.  The term deliberately conflates the nation with the party that rules it, and since democrats do not “love” one-party communist rule they are by definition not patriotic. *

INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS

         Beijing’s reminder came just as pan-democrats and the Hong Kong government were preparing their presentations for the United Nations Human Rights Committee hearing in Geneva on March 12-13.  This is an annual event concerned with Hong Kong’s implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).  China’s human rights record is not subject to similar scrutiny because Beijing has yet to ratify the ICCPR.  But Hong Kong was allowed to remain within its purview after 1997, and government representatives attend the Geneva hearings.  This year about a dozen pan-democrats made the trip to participate as observers and make sure their views were heard.

         Emily Lau, who now heads the Democratic Party, has been a regular at these meetings for two decades.  She focused this year on Beijing’s no-longer-hidden meddling in Hong Kong elections, in evident violation of the one-country, two-systems principle(“民主黨” dphk@dphk.org, Mar. 13).   More pointedly, Hong Kong participants asked the committee to note that Beijing will be in violation of Article 25 of the ICCPR if the “patriotic” pre-condition is enforced.  Article 25 defines the principle of universal suffrage to mean the equal right of all citizens, regardless of their political opinions, “to vote and to be elected at genuine periodic elections.”  Hence, by definition, Beijing would also be reneging on its promise to allow universal suffrage elections in Hong Kong.

THE NEW ALLIANCE

          Dispirited moderate democrats had been meeting and adjourning for months, unable to decide what to do with their much-maligned Alliance for Ultimate Universal Suffrage [ 終極普選聯 ]  that had been lying dormant since it served as brain-trust for the 2009/10 campaign.   The name came from Hong Kong’s Basic Law constitution, Article 68, that says “the ultimate aim is the election of all the members of the Legislative Council by universal suffrage.” Article 45 says the same for the Chief Executive.  Alliance members, moderates all, did not realize until too late that universal suffrage means one thing in mainland parlance and practice, and something different elsewhere.  But even the most jaded of (Democrtic Party) moderates could not fail to recognize the revived hopes sparked by Benny Tai’s Occupy Central idea.  Nor could radicals fail to appreciate that moderate Tai had taken a page from their disruptive play book for his proposal.  The speeches in Beijing also served to remind everyone of the obstacles and dangers that lay ahead.

            And so the old alliance was reborn as the Alliance for Genuine Universal Suffrage [ 真普選聯盟 ].  Its formal English name will be the Alliance for True Democracy.  With some reservations, radicals and moderates have put aside their differences to join the new pan-democratic united front.  They all sat side by side together at its March 21 launch where they pledged to work out plans and proposals for the next stage of Hong Kong’s 30-year struggle to achieve elected government.  The effort matches step one of Benny Tai’s Occupy Central campaign, without yet committing to its last disruptive act (March 14 post).

          Convener of the new alliance will be the moderately-mannered radical political science professor Joseph Cheng of the Civic Party.  He may not be a miracle worker but he is at least a glutton for punishment with the patience of a saint.  After the big half-million-person protest march in 2003, pro-democracy activists began to appreciate the costs of keeping their movement alive by treating elections as just another form of political exercise.  They decided to try and resist the temptation to compete against each other within the same constituencies and set up an informal candidate coordination mechanism.  It worked reasonably well, with Joseph Cheng serving as chief coordinator, until some radicals refused to go along during the 2011/12 election cycle and now have the scars to show for it. 

         Cheng’s first test will be keeping the most radical People Power radicals within the coalition.  But he knows they will help clarify the distinctions (sure to become muddled as debate over electoral designs resumes) between the equal and universal one-person-one-vote ideal and the mainland’s party-dominated adaptation.

*   UPDATE:  More Beijing Definitions.    A top mainland official who often speaks on Hong Kong election reform matters has since provided more forceful clarification of Beijing’s thinking.  At a closed-door meeting with pro-establishment Hong Kong Legislative Councilors across the border in Shenzhen on March 24, Qiao Xiaoyang [喬曉陽 ]  said that those who insist on confronting the central government cannot expect to qualify as candidates for Chief Executive in 2017.  As an example of such confrontation, he cited the standard democratic demand for an end to one-party dictatorship in China.  Even worse for pan-democrats, he said there must be a filtering process and it should be conducted by something like the existing Election Committee, after which the general public could choose among the approved candidates. He also said that Beijing had been very “tolerant” in dealing with Hong Kong, suggesting that maybe Beijing’s patience is running thin. …   A copy of Qiao’s remarks circulated afterward, providing the basis for all Hong Kong news media accounts on March 24/25.   He is head of the Law Committee of the NPC.

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YET ANOTHER ELECTION: PAN-DEMS LOSE AGAIN … AND HEAD FOR THE STREETS AGAIN

Mar 14

Posted by Suzanne in Letters from Hong Kong | No Comments | Print This Post Print This Post

           Two special or by-elections have been held here since the last major election cycle in 2011/2012 and pro-democracy candidates have lost them both.  These two latest defeats have occurred at the District Council level, one last November and the other last Sunday.   They follow pan-democrats’ disastrous overall performance in the 2011 District Councils general election that saw loyalists increase their margins to dominate all 18 of Hong Kong’s local councils (Nov. 14, 2011 post).   Many reasons can always be identified for these losses including especially well-endowed loyalist election coffers and organizational leadership orchestrated by the main pro-Beijing political party and trade union federation.  But one common thread running throughout, reinforcing the effect of these loyalist advantages, is pan-democrats’ fatal attraction to each other …  meaning to run against each other in the same constituency.  Since their opponents are invariably united, feuding democrats invariably lose. 

THE SHATIN BY-ELECTIONS

         As it happened, the two vacated seats were both on the Shatin District Council, now a stronghold of the loyalist camp.  This is thanks in large part to the grassroots organizing work of Lau Kong-wah [劉 江 華] and his political/social action group Civil Force [公民力量].   It was founded by Lau in the early 1990s and has always been based in the suburban New Territories district of Shatin, just north of urban Kowloon.  Lau began his political life as a democrat but soon moved on.  He joined the main pro-Beijing political party (Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong or DAB) in 1998 and served as one of its vice-chairmen for several years, until his appointment last December as deputy minister in charge of the Hong Kong government’s Mainland and Constitutional Affairs Bureau.

         Among the 36 directly-elected Shatin District Councilors, 27 are pro-Beijing or pro-establishment conservatives; only nine are pan-democrats.  There might have been a tenth democrat on this council after last November’s by-election,  had not three-way factional rivalry grown so intense during the contest for this seat that DAB candidate Alvin Chiu won by just 45 votes.  Key players in that On Tai [鞍泰] Constituency drama were:   (1) the Democratic Party, (2) Neo-Democrats or the New Democratic Alliance, and (3) People Power/Frontier. 

          The Democratic Party was then (and is still) smarting from all the flak it has had to take for its 2010 decision to “capitulate” and compromise on the government’s political reform package.  The other two were and remain “radical” critics of that decision. Neo-Democrats are actually an offshoot of the DP who decided to split off and go their own way after the 2010 decision.  But the mischief-maker in the pack seems to have been a third democrat who ran as an independent in November 2012.  He had been People Power’s candidate in this constituency during the general 2011 election.   On election night 2012, after the results were announced, the Democratic Party’s Helena Wong  posted an angry message accusing her erstwhile Neo-Dem colleagues of being in league with their common DAB adversary.   She did not mention People Power and its seeming behind-the-scenes role in the strange realignment of voters that had occurred, and which has yet to be explained (Nov. 8, 2012 post). 

          Fast forward to March 10, 2013 and all the same players returned for an encore in the Tin Sum  [田心] Constituency by-election, although they were arranged in somewhat different order.  This seat was vacated by Lau Kong-wah himself.  He had parachuted into the constituency at the last minute in order to qualify as one of the DAB candidates for the linked Legislative Council seats added as part of the 2010 decision. But unlike all the other many parachuters in the 2011 District Councils general election, Lau knew he was returning “home” to a safe seat.  He then failed to win one of the linked Legislative Council seats …  to the cheers of local democracy activists  …  but their celebrations were short-lived.

           In what has become an in-your-face official habit here, loyalists who are defeated in partisan altercations with pan-democrats can expect compensatory rewards.  As deputy chief of the Mainland and Constitutional Affairs Bureau, Lau will be one of the principal authorities to figure in the next stage of political reform negotiations and with whom pan-democrats will be obliged to work.

         Meanwhile, back in Shatin, the already-declared Civil Force candidate who had gallantly stepped aside (to make way for Lau Kong-wah and facilitate the DAB’s 2011 election strategy) returned as the loyalist by-election candidate.  Had pan-democrats learned from the experience?  It would be “naive” to think so, said one Ming Pao Daily account.  The Democratic Party declared its intentions in January, and so did People Power.  Since the constituency was known as a Civil Force “domain,” contesting the seat would be good experience, said People Power.   Winning was not important.  But would that not simply hand another victory to loyalist forces?  No matter, said People Power chairman Christopher Lau.  Since pan-democrats still did not have a common political platform, there was no point in working out a common election strategy (Ming Pao, Jan. 18, 2013).

        Sure enough, support teams for Democratic Party and People Power candidates were elbowing each other for the best curbside campaign spots, while Civil Force supporters were putting on an unhindered show of strength, filling all their allotted public space just across the street.   The Democratic Party nevertheless succeeded in mustering a much broader than usual supporting cast of radical and moderate political leaders.  Those who came out to campaign for its candidate included Ronny Tong and Joseph Cheng of the Civic Party, Charles Mok of Professional Commons, Lee Cheuk-yan and Fernando Cheung of the Labor Party, and veteran moderate Frederick Fung. People Power’s only party supporters were from the Neo-Democrats.

         Turnout was high for a by-election, at 45% of the 8,091 registered voters in the constituency.  The results: 

Tin Sum Constituency By-election, March 2013

affiliation                                      candidate                                  votes received

Civil Force PUN Kwok-shan   2,432
Democratic Party TING Tsz-yuen      675
People Power/Frontier LAM Hong-ching      531
Youth Democracy SO Pui-lam        23

TO THE STREETS:  OCCUPY CENTRAL

         Loyalists are now behaving as though pan-democrats are in a state of terminal electoral decline and maybe they are.  Back in the 1990s when pro-Beijing candidates first ventured out to contest elections, they said it was just a learn-by-doing exercise since they had no hope of winning.  For that reason they insisted on proportional representation after 1997, in hopes of seeing at least some return for their efforts.  Now they are so confident that they are openly speculating about a return to the Anglo-American style winner-take-all election districts and it is pan-democrats who say they are not running to win but only for the exercise. 

          The streets still belong to pan-democrats, however, and even though loyalists are now trying to organize demonstrations of their own, protecting rights and freedoms are the issues that continue to bring out tens of thousands … far more than Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing political managers can hope to match.   The Tin Sum by-election campaign offered some clues as to how pan-democrats might pull out of their demoralized dive, and so does a new idea that has attracted much greater interest.

           People Power chairman Christopher Lau had said there was no point in working together on the Tin Sum by-election campaign because pan-democrats had yet to agree on a common program.  But Civic and Labor Party leaders had all disagreed with then Democratic Party chairman Albert Ho’s decision to compromise on the government’s 2010 political reform package.  Yet they all decided to rally round and help out a young Democratic Party candidate in his hour of need even though he was bound to lose.  Only People Power and the Neo-Democrats refused …  and now there is a new idea they might actually like.  

          Even better for the move toward common ground:  Albert Ho has had a change of heart.   He led his party in its resistance to the “radical” 2010 protest referendum and a year later he was still struggling with the whole idea of trying to conduct “civil disobedience” campaigns here due, he wrote, to the peculiar mentality of local people (June 1, 2011 post).   To everyone’s surprise, he has now suddenly done a 180-degree turn … almost.  Like all good politicians, he will not admit he was wrong before.  Instead, he still insists he was right THEN but aims to do better now!    And the spark of inspiration for this new mood also comes from an unlikely source … within his own moderate 2010 brain trust.       

          University of Hong Kong law school professors are usually not so adventurous but Benny Tai Yiu-ting [戴 耀 廷 ] hit upon an idea calculated to bring together the two, radical and moderate, wings of Hong Kong’s democracy movement.  Titled “Civil Disobedience as the Most Powerful of Weapons,” the proposal was first presented in his regular Hong Kong Economic Journal [信報] column on January 16.  Tai’s article struck an immediate responsive cord (among pan-democrats) and he has since contributed several more (Jan. 30, Feb. 6, 28, etc.).  

          Another moderate professor followed in kind.  Chinese University sociologist Chan Kin-man [陳 健 民] declared that he and other academics had acted in good faith before, believing their Beijing counterparts and the soft-sell counsel of compromise from everyone  in 2010.  Now Chan and many others were looking back on those discussions as little more than a Beijing-led exercise in procrastination.  The next phase of Hong Kong’s political reform evolution is beginning and Hong Kong’s new Chief Executive has begun by seeming to carry on with the same sort of procrastination.  Beijing has promised that Hong Kong’s Chief Executive “can” (not shall or must) be elected by universal suffrage in 2017, and the Legislative Council in 2020.  Hong Kong democrats worry that any Beijing approved electoral reform design will be like the 2010 plan:  called “universal suffrage” in name but not allowed in fact.   Says Chan:  more determined methods must be used to put the point across, namely, that Hong Kongers will settle for nothing less than the genuine product (Ming Pao Daily, Feb. 13, March 4).

          Weeks of discussion have led to the creation of a four-step strategy built around Professor Tai’s civil disobedience idea that he adapted in turn from the street theatre antics of Hong Kong’s most radical radicals.  During the past two years, Long Hair Leung Kwok-hung (of the League of Social Democrats) and Raymond “Mad Dog” Wong (founder of People Power) have led the way with increasingly disruptive tactics.  These are non-violent, say the perpetrators, but deliberately physical and forceful.  Activists from these groups have taken to staying behind after major demonstrations and blocking intersections in the downtown central district.  They confront police and dare arrest and the police are increasingly happy to oblige.  

             Professor Tai is suggesting instead a deliberate downtown blockade with 10,000 people, all pledged to peaceful resistance but also daring arrest.   Now dubbed the “Occupy Central” movement, his idea has evolved to become the course of last resort, or final step in a four-stage effort combining the full range of tactics that pan-democrats have tried in recent years:  public consultations, virtual online referendums, resignations and real ballot-box by-elections, and street demonstrations.

          In this case, the new plan is to begin with widespread public consultations that will produce some agreed-upon election reform designs.  Next, Robert Chung, director of Hong Kong University’s Public Opinion Program will contribute his recently honed skills in organizing city-wide on-line voting so the public can register its preferences for these designs.  Then, depending on Beijing’s reaction to all this, the Democratic Party’s Albert Ho has agreed to do what his party refused to have any part of in 2010.  He says he will resign his Legislative Council seat in order to trigger a by-election to elect his successor … and to double as a public protest referendum.  Finally, if all this fails, Professor Tai’s civil disobedience Occupy Central campaign will kick in (Apple Daily, March 8).  The aim is “genuine” election reform based on accepted international standards of universal suffrage that give equal weight to all voters and allow for the equal right to nominate and be nominated.

         No one doubts the ability of pan-democrats to carry out this ambitious plan since there have been many trial runs for each step all along the way.  The question is whether it can achieve the desired result and herein lays the greatest challenge for pan-democrats.  Their failures to date have not been due to any lack of popular energy or activism.  Rather they seem to derive from a continuing inability to see their main DAB opponent as the electoral wing of the local branch of the Chinese Communist Party.  It follows that they have also failed to foresee its long-term “one-country, one-system” evolutionary strategies, and to appreciate the ease with which Beijing  can promise “universal suffrage.” 

         A kind of universal suffrage is now being practiced all over China and that same design (of grassroots party-dominated direct elections with indirect party-controlled elections above) would have been introduced here via the government’s 2010 “District Council model” of indirect elections to the Legislative Council.  Yet Albert Ho and Emily Lau made their 2010 compromise decision without clarifying even to other leading members of their own party that the right to nominate and be nominated for the new reformed Legislative Council seats was still restricted to District Councilors. 

          In fact,  Hong Kong  was being asked to accept a “People’s Congress” model of political reform, while DAB and government leaders kept its provenance to themselves, democrats for whatever reason did not discuss, and the voting public was none the wiser.  Hopefully those same kinds of mistakes will not be repeated and pan-democrats can at least avoid a system of universal suffrage elections built on the District Council base that Lau Kong-wah and the DAB have so successfully established.

suzpepper@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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THE TRIBULATIONS OF BEING CHIEF EXECUTIVE

Feb 25

Posted by Suzanne in Letters from Hong Kong | 2 Comments | Print This Post Print This Post

         No wonder Hong Kong’s new Chief Executive flew off to England at the start of the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday and didn’t return for 10 days.  He had to get away.  Anyone would.  Leung Chun-ying has not had a moment’s peace since he was elected almost a year ago, on March 25, 2012.  Yet another new scandal was brewing as he flew away and it continues to percolate now that he has returned to yet more demands for yet more investigations into his conduct and character.   It might have been dismissed as an amusing holiday interlude … if only he had not overreacted to the latest provocation … and if only the legal and political implications were not so serious.

        Besides CY Leung himself, the episode featured two principals:  pro-Beijing businessman Lew Mon-hung [ 劉夢熊 ] and Joseph Lian Yi-zheng [ 練乙錚 ], an economist by training and political commentator by inclination.  The only thing the two men have in common is their contribution to Leung’s latest round of embarrassments. They also both hold Ph.D. degrees but Lian earned his whereas rumor has it that Lew did not.

            Lew Mon-hung, who is nicknamed the “Dream Bear” because that’s what his name means in Chinese, was until recently one of the Chief Executive’s most enthusiastic fans.  Lew has now turned on his prospective benefactor with a vengeance accusing him:  of offering advantages in return for electoral support last year; of lying about his unauthorized home renovations; and of treating pan-democrats as mortal enemies. 

          Joseph Lian then picked up the story extrapolating, in his usual style, from the facts known and surmised about Lew’s case.   The Chief Executive’s problem, wrote Lian, is not so much about integrity …  a reference to the ongoing unauthorized home alterations saga …  but rather about political corruption with implied links to organized crime, known here as the triad societies.  Lian compounded the accusations by suggesting that the Chief Executive probably deserved shuanggui [雙規 ], a mainland term used with reference to the procedure whereby communist party disciplinarians try to keep errant high ranking officials in line.  Those suspected of wrong-doing, whether or not they are party members, must when summoned submit to investigation and interrogation.  The term can be translated as “double designation”, meaning suspects must make themselves available when and where instructed to do so, at the designated time and place.

DREAM BEAR’S PREDICAMENT

        Lew Mon-hung is easily the most colorful personality in the cast of Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing political actors.  Traditional loyalists keep their opinions of him mostly to themselves, some others openly disdain the “spectacle” he makes of himself, outside observers think he might actually harbor liberal tendencies, and pan-democrats can scarcely contain their glee at his current legal predicament.  They are responsible for his English nickname because it sounds funnier in English than Chinese …  which has some elegant literary allusions that are totally out-of-sync with his character.

         Officially, however, his rags-to-riches Hong Kong story began when he swam here from a nearby county in 1973.   Like many other Guangzhou middle school students he wanted to escape the life of a rusticated city youth assigned to work in the countryside.   Such “freedom swimmer” arrivals then were illegal but they were allowed to stay.  Lew worked his way up from the factory floor to become a successful businessman (now executive director of the Pearl Oriental Oil Company) and vociferous patriot.  He has qualified in this latter respect by becoming a frequent contributor of opinion pieces to the pro-Beijing press where he likes to lambast pan-democrats such as Professor Sing Ming (Feb. 6, 2012 post), autonomy movement colonial flag bearers (Nov. 23, 2012 post), and so on.  For this and much else he was rewarded by being appointed one of Hong Kong’s delegates to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (honorary companion body of the National People’s Congress).   But that was the previous CPPCC delegation.  The new team has just been appointed ahead of the first annual meetings next month of the 12th NPC/CPPCC.  Lew’s name is conspicuously absent from the list.

          In fact, Lew has only just emerged from an interrogation by Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) where he was questioned for five hours and arrested on suspicion of “perverting the course of justice.”  This charge resulted from his attempt, in effect, to blackmail the Chief Executive into interceding with the ICAC over another case, an attempt that led to the above dramatic accusations against the Chief Executive.

       The first case concerned Lew’s January 8 arrest on suspicion of corporate fraud related to insider trading of a listed company.  But then he did a really dumb thing, allegedly sending a letter the next day to Leung Chun-ying reminding him of his pre-election promises and threatening to let loose a “political bombshell” if Leung did not intercede on Lew’s behalf with ICAC commissioner Simon Peh over the insider trading case.  As yet unverified copies of the January 9 letter have since been leaked to the press (Apple, Feb. 17, Ming Pao, Feb. 18).

          Meanwhile, Lew had already set off his bombshell.   The January 9 threat, although not yet public knowledge, was made good in the interview he gave to the Chinese-language weekly magazine iSun Affairs  (陽光時務週刊, no. 40, Jan. 24).  It was in this interview that he spelled out the above accusations, namely, that he had actively campaigned for Leung last year and had been promised in return a seat on his Executive Council cabinet if he won.  Such a promise might violate Hong Kong election law if made, but if it was the promise was not kept.  Lew also said he knew Leung’s explanations about his household renovations were false.  And he declared that Leung regarded pan-democrats as political enemies (Ming Pao Daily, Jan. 25).

       These revelations made headlines only because one of Leung’s most vociferous champions was the source.  Another of Leung’s supporters, who did receive her cabinet appointment, laughed off the episode during a February 3rd television interview.  She said Lew’s accusations were very “entertaining,” that she had heard him say the same things before and thought they were “probably true.”  The speaker was Regina Ip, famous for her role as a ranking civil servant in promoting the abortive 2003 Article 23 legislation and now a directly elected Legislative Councilor.

        To date, then, Lew has not only lost all hope of official appointment but he has been arrested twice and had to post bail both times, once on January 8 for suspected insider trading and again on February 20 for attempted intimidation.  If convicted he is looking at some serious jail time.  As for the Chief Executive, the ICAC is also looking into the possibility that he may have violated the election ordinance … and then there is the inevitable problem of guilt by association, which is where Joseph Lian picked up the story.

INFERENCES AND EXTRAPOLATIONS

        Leung Chun-ying himself said little except for a “nothing new, nothing true” one-liner about Lew’s allegations, which are now under legal investigation.  But Joseph Lian’s affront was something else again and this time it was the Chief Executive who set off a bombshell compounding the negative impact many times over.  Joseph Lian is a respected essayist and man of many talents, currently commuting between Hong Kong and a university teaching assignment in Japan.  Before that he was an editor and regular columnist at the Chinese-language Hong Kong Economic Journal  [信報 ].  The cause of Leung’s anger was a January 29 opinion piece in the paper discussing the implications of Lew’s case.  The essay’s title (roughly translated) said it all:  “Leung’s integrity problem is not so bad, but involvement with triads could deserve shuanggui.”

       If the Chief Executive had not asked his lawyers to send a threatening letter to the newspaper, Lian’s article might have gone more-or-less unnoticed amid the rush of  Chinese New Year preparations.  It was even longer than his usual and he first mulled over the now familiar story of Beijing’s support for the two candidates, Leung and Henry Tang, in last year’s election contest.  But then Lian’s narrative re-focused on Hong Kong with a  provocative comment about Leung’s arrival as Chief Executive being the product of a “red father and a black mother” ….  red for communist, black for corruption.  Nor did he mean just any kind of ordinary corruption.  The essay concluded with a lengthy discussion of the question “Is Hong Kong society being triad-ized   [黑道化]?

            He first referred to the known fact of that famous campaign dinner organized last year in the New Territories by Lew Mon-hung.  A triad society gangster … known in the area as Mr. Fixit … was included on the February 10 guest list along with rural community leaders, and members of Leung’s campaign staff (Mar. 21, 2012 post).  Rural community leaders accounted for over 20 votes on the Election Committee and were thought to be supporters of Henry Tang.  Lian went on to claim that triads supported Leung’s election “100%,” and asked what might become of Hong Kong society after five years with such a man at the helm.  He concluded by suggesting that mainland leaders, however corrupt themselves, had ways of dealing with such officials.  Perhaps a spell of shuanggui would be able to ferret out the true extent of Liang’s triad connections and those of the people around him. 

        The essay was meant to be provocative and insulting.  But instead of just issuing a protest statement, Leung had his lawyers send a formal letter to the paper demanding a retraction.   The episode was transformed instantly into a freedom-of-the-press issue, reinforcing general fears about the dictatorial inclinations of Hong Kong’s new “red” chief executive.

         HKEJ editors naturally refused to retract but they did issue an apology of sorts, pointedly addressed to readers rather than to Leung.  The editors and author expressed regret for any false impression that might have been created since the article, they said, was only hypothetical meaning “if” Leung was involved with organized crime, not that he actually already was (HKEJ, Feb. 7).  The only problem with the apology is that “if” was also only implied, as in the essay’s title:   誠信問題已非要害  梁氏涉黑 實可雙規 。

          To place all this in better perspective, it’s helpful to think in terms of local distinctions.  Last year in reporting on “that dinner,” held in a seafood restaurant out on the northernmost New Territories coast near the Hong Kong-mainland border, Chinese-language newspapers often used the term “rivers and lakes people” [江湖人物] with reference to the guests.  A journalist friend explained the distinction between “rivers and lakes people” and “black society” [黑社會] or triad members.  He used a simple rule of thumb.  If we write about someone being a black society member, “he will definitely be angry” … especially if he isn’t.   But if we say someone is a rivers-and-lakes person, “he won’t mind.”   The latter has ancient associations dating back hundreds of years to “Water Margin” literature, heroes of the marshes, all men are brothers, and so on … “like Robin Hood.” Nowadays they may have dealings with triads but they are not part of the organized crime scene.  Lew Mon-hung, at least until his recent legal troubles, was accepted as a rivers-and-lakes character.  Since Joseph Lian used triad terminology with reference to the Chief Executive, by definition he had to be angry.

suzpepper@gmail.com 

 

“NO THANKS,” MR. CHIEF EXECUTIVE

Feb 6

Posted by Suzanne in Letters from Hong Kong | No Comments | Print This Post Print This Post

        If Hong Kong’s embattled Chief Executive has achieved little else during his first half-year in office, he has at least done one thing that everyone thought was impossible.  Leung Chun-ying is a target so tempting that all the feuding pro-democracy parties have (for now) put aside their differences and joined in unison against him.  All 27 members of the pan-democratic bloc in the Legislative Council backed the motion to impeach him on January 9, and all 27 voted accordingly even though they knew their gesture was only symbolic (Jan 9 post).  

            Their determination held through February 1, when they also defeated the courtesy “motion-of-thanks” that traditionally follows the Chief Executive’s annual policy address (Jan. 24 post).  They had vowed to do this immediately after he gave it on January 16, and not only did no one waiver or absent themselves when the division bell sounded for the vote but they even picked up another one in the process.   Contributing to their success was the “two-house” design of the Legislative Council itself, which on rare occasions can actually work to their advantage.

          The design was mandated by Beijing via post-colonial Hong Kong’s new Basic Law constitution, in order to keep pro-democracy legislators in the voting minority despite their popular majorities at the ballot box.  For example, since the January 9 motion to impeach came from the floor rather than the government, voting was subject to the Legislative Council’s divisive two-house rule.  Directly-elected Geographic Constituency legislators voted for the motion:  18 for, 14 against, all 18 being democrats.  But the occupation-based Functional Constituency legislators were able to defeat it by voting:  9 for, 23 against.  The great majority of these legislators are not democrats.

        Since the motion-of-thanks also came from the floor, it too needed approval by majorities from both kinds of legislators, voting separately.  So directly-elected pan-democrats were able to defeat the motion by using all their strength and voting: 16 for, 18 against.  Functional Constituency legislators approved:  24 for, 10 against, but to no avail.  The extra thumbs-down vote came from one of the pro-democracy camp’s FC marginals who had absented himself on January 9.

         For once the system worked in pan-democrats’ favor, although maybe not for too much longer at least as far as the motion-of-thanks is concerned.  The Chinese-language Hong Kong Economic Journal [ 信報 ] seems to have taken the greatest interest in this arcane ritual.  According to the paper’s account, 2013 marks the 11th time the motion has been defeated since the Basic Law system was established in 1997.*

        During pre-vote proceedings last week … that droned on for 30+ hours over three days while legislators debated the pros and cons of CY Leung’s policy address … one conservative Functional Constituency legislator recalled the custom’s colonial history.  Before 1997, he said, the governor would give his annual address and legislators (all appointed by the governor) had to thank him for it, “as though he was our master and we his underlings.”  Since that was obviously no longer the case, maybe it was time to think about putting aside this particular holdover from days gone by.**

DEBATING THE MOTION:  FOR

       Although no one actually said so, the impetus both for and against was grounded in Beijing.  Pan-democrats fear the political future and CY Leung, as an uncritical promoter of Hong Kong-mainland integration, personifies the future they fear.  In voting for the motion, pro-establishment legislators also closed ranks but their unity papered over interests far more diverse than those among faction-ridden pan-democrats.  The February 1 vote in support of the Chief Executive should thus be seen as an exercise in political pragmatism with Beijing pointing the way; bedrock loyalist legislators holding firm; and Hong Kong conservatives falling into line …  some more reluctantly than others.

            The conservatives include CY Leung’s “fans,” as they are now being called, and those who supported his opponent Henry Tang in last year’s Chief Executive selection contest.  Some in the “Tang camp” seem to dislike CY almost as much as do pan-democrats, albeit for different reasons.   Bedrock loyalist legislators are those representing Hong Kong’s main pro-Beijing political party, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) and the Federation of Trade Unions (FTU).    Among the total 40 votes supporting the motion, legislators representing the DAB and FTU numbered 18.  Included among the remaining 22 votes were those coming from the Liberal Party and other Tang campers.  

            Beijing officials set the tone with public statements of support for the Chief Executive and dismissing all rumors that CY would soon be removed.  Just before the policy address ritual began, Hong Kong’s newly named delegates to the National People’s Congress (Dec. 27 post) were called to a meeting across the border in neighboring Shenzhen.  At the meeting, Beijing officials lamented the reluctance of Hong Kong’s young people to identify with the motherland.  The officials also advised that Leung and his rival Henry Tang, and their mutual supporters, should set aside their differences.***

          This they did, at least for the February 1 vote, but not before many of them had their say during the marathon motion-of-thanks debate beforehand.  Liberal Party legislator James Tien was an outspoken supporter of Henry Tang last year and did not go out of his way to heed Beijing’s advice, even though it was conveyed by his brother Michael who is also a legislator and concurrently an NPC delegate.  Michael attended the Shenzhen meeting and spoke to reporters afterward.  But during the policy address debate, brother James did not pledge allegiance to CY.  Instead, James Tien advised CY to name others besides his own friends when making appointments to all the committees he is setting up to advise on all his promises.  Among other things, Tien also said his vote for the motion was a courtesy not an endorsement. 

          Most widely quoted, however, was the sarcastic comment of another Tang supporter, Functional Constituency (Industrial) legislator, Lam Tai-fai.   Last year, he said, we were given to understand that CY would be “like Moses” about to lead us out of the Red Sea and into the Promised Land.  Instead, here we are, still floundering aimlessly “with only slogans and no objectives.”

       The debate suggested just how difficult Leung’s life is going to be when even those who should be part of his natural support base have so many reservations.  In fact, even some of those he knows he can count on (until Beijing officials themselves turn against him) could hardly contain themselves, although in the end they all did. 

          Most outspoken among pro-Beijing loyalists was Federation of Trade Union legislator Chan Yuen-han.   During a Legislative Council question-and-answer session that followed the January 16 policy address, she delivered a fiery tirade over Leung’s apparent backsliding on the need for standard working hours.  She said she wished she could behave like People Power radical Albert Chan because she wanted to storm out of the chamber in protest as he often does.  Later she complained about not having enough time to consult her constituents about the address.  Still later she said she had listened to their opinions and “some” felt it was pointing in the right direction on other livelihood issues.  Finally, she said that unionists must be concerned about employment as well as wages and benefits … reflecting conservative arguments that standard working hours and overtime pay would hurt the bottom line and lead to layoffs. 

        There was general agreement, in principle, with the Chief Executive’s emphasis on housing and poverty.  In this he has never wavered.  But no one expressed much faith in his ability to have an impact on these two most intractable of Hong Kong’s livelihood issues … and especially not in the near to medium future as candidate Leung had promised last year.  Some conservative legislators knew well whereof they spoke, of course, since they represent the “stakeholder’ interests that invariably block solutions each time some new one is proposed and are doing the same now. 

         In contrast, loyalist legislators all moved in the same direction as the FTU’s Chan Yuen-han, presumably taking their cue from Beijing.  DAB legislator Ann Chiang said it would be best to consult and reach a consensus on standard working hours.  That way the authorities could concentrate on boosting employment prospects and jobs for young people.  Federation of Trade Unions legislator Wong Kwok-hing stuck with his demand for standard working hours longer than did Chan, but in the end he too supported the motion-of-thanks.  DAB chairman Tam Yiu-chung praised the Chief Executive’s efforts to date:  the revived poverty commission, the need to draw a poverty line, and a new allowance for needy seniors.  He also chastised pan-democrats for demanding too much too soon.

DEBATING THE MOTION:  AGAINST

         Pan-democrats returned the favor, mocking DAB/FTU legislators for their time-honored tradition of conforming to the party line regardless of what they might have said before.  Pan-democrats also held their ground throughout the exercise, which included several amendments expressing regret for the many policy address disappointments.  The amendments, all of which were voted down, and the critical commentaries overall were wide ranging.  The main issues:  failure to begin moving on the next phase of political reform that is supposed to be in place by the coming 2016/17 election cycle; the familiar old official dilatory tactic of setting up new committees to study policy problems that have been studied for years; the retreat on standard working hours; failure to tackle proposals for a universal pension scheme; failure to consider demands for an anti-sexual discrimination law.

         More important for the long-term direction they want to travel, however, were the speeches freshmen pro-democracy legislators gave in honor of their signature issues and in denunciation of CY Leung for his failure to address any of them.  Functional Constituency (Education) legislator, Ip Kin-yuen, , newly elected last September, is the latest in a line of education sector democrats leading back to the late Szeto Wah.  Ip began by noting Emily Lau’s question to the Chief Executive about why his policy address had ignored political reform.  Leung had put her off with his standard reply:  “We have time.”  How much time does he need, asked Ip.  He recalled his days as a student leader in the early 1980s when Hong Kong’s new democracy movement was just beginning.  Students had organized a petition calling for universal suffrage and sent it to Beijing.  They were all anti-colonial and looked forward to the day when Hong Kong could become a democratic part of China.  Then, as elections to the Legislative Council began, he had idealized it as a forum for democratic debate.  But now he had arrived there himself and he could see it was not what he had spent so many years looking forward to  … “We’ve been at this for 30 years,” he said, “isn’t that time enough?”

        Newly elected Functional Constituency (Accountancy) legislator Kenneth Leung said he was disappointed and angry with the policy address because it had contained nothing on constitutional development.  If we had genuine democracy, he said, people would not need to keep going to the streets and the police would not need to keep strengthening their crowd control measures.  The Civic Party’s Kwok Ka-ki, directly-elected last September, said “we have room and space” here and now to move toward universal suffrage elections. Hong Kong has judicial independence, clean government, and freedom of political expression.  Yet we hear nothing from CY Leung on constitutional reform. 

          Another newly elected Civic Party legislator, Dennis Kwok (Functional Constituency, Legal), lamented the “few empty words” in the policy address on the rule of law, which also had nothing to say about the courts and human rights protection.  Legal aid had suffered from neglect and underfunding since being moved to the Home Affairs Department (headed since 2007 by pro-Beijing stalwart Tsang Tak-sing, although Kowk did not name him). Hong Kong’s chief justice, Geoffrey Ma, had recently given a speech emphasizing the need for transparency and reasoning in the rule of law.  This is why people are resisting the government’s recent recommendation to refer controversial cases to Beijing for interpretation.  The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, which issues the interpretations, is not transparent, said Kwok, and it does not explain the reasoning for its judgments.  This is why we do not trust them, and this is also what we mean by democratic development.  Without democratic development, we will not be able to safeguard the rule of law and our independent judiciary.

         Nor were the freshmen alone in their determination.  More remarkable has been the energy displayed by veteran moderate Frederick Fung.  He, too, goes back to the 1980s when he founded one of Hong Kong’s first action groups, the Association for Democracy and People’s Livelihood.  He has spent most of the years since trying to find a place for himself on the line that divides pan-democrats from every0ne else.  But he has remained adamant in his insistence that CY Leung lacks integrity, the proof being that he lied about the unauthorized renovations to his home, and is therefore not qualified to serve as Chief Executive.  During his February 1 remarks, Fung again mentioned the integrity issue.  He also commented on Leung’s “background,” concluding that he will not do anything to promote genuine universal suffrage elections since these cannot be tailor-made to produce only “certain kinds of people.”

        Barrister Ronny Tong of the Civic Party is a stickler for legalistic definitions but on this occasion he combined them with the political dimension as well, in a way he could not bring himself to do when his party joined the “radical” 2010 referendum campaign.  In his February 1 speech, Tong said the rules governing Hong Kong call for a check-and-balance relationship between the Legislative Council and the Chief Executive.  The policy address had failed to address the relationship despite growing tensions between the two that other legislators also noted.  Ronny Tong concluded that this lapse was due to CY Leung’s “confrontational” attitude toward the legislature, a fact that Leung himself has admitted (Jan. 24 post).  When Tong asked him about it, Leung replied that they should all “work together.”  Tong said this was flying in the face of the Basic Law.  He also said that his effort to instruct Leung on its correct check-and-balance implications is continuing.

        The motion-of-thanks ritual is just that … a non-binding formality that would not be missed if it disappeared from the legislative calendar altogether.  CY Leung can ignore the results or not as he chooses, and he did not need three days of repetitive speeches to know what various sectors of the community think of him.  But there is much to learn from this colonial holdover, first and foremost being the end of the old deferential relationship between master and minions, as one conservative legislator indelicately put it.  In this respect, ironically, pre-1997 Hong Kong bears far greater resemblance to the People’s Congress arrangement, still prevailing in Beijing today, than post-colonial Hong Kong does to its new sovereign.

            Consequently, Beijing officials probably have the most to learn since their intrusive pressures here, personified by CY Leung and his “background,” are being met with increasing resistance from all pan-democrats including both juniors and seniors.  Wistful advisories about failure to identify with the motherland won’t carry much weight, and Beijing will need all of its persuasive powers just to keep conservatives in line.  As for CY himself, he may want to step down even before Beijing renders a verdict on his performance since he obviously did not anticipate the challenges he would face when he confidently promised last year to be a governor for all Hong Kong.  Instead, he has only succeeded in convincing his opponents and supporters to remain as they were.  Yet he must somehow produce concrete results before his next policy address, which will no doubt also have to be delayed from the traditional October to January, since October is only nine months away. 

 *  HKEJ, Jan. 28, Feb. 2/3.   The Legislative Council Secretariat confirms that 2013 marks the 11th time the motion has been defeated, not the ninth as widely reported (e-mail, Feb. 5).  The motion has carried five times since 1997, two of which were passed by Legco voting as a whole rather than via the two-house division.

**  Check the Legislative Council website:  http://www.legco.gov.hk/english/index.htm, for verbatim Legislative Council proceedings posted first in Chinese and eventually in English translation; also for links to the RTHK video webcast, from the floor, in Cantonese only.  Otherwise, the visitor’s gallery is always open … even if the newly opened cavernous council chamber seems more like a cold dark hermetically-sealed bubble than a forum for the people’s representatives.  Or as one attendant volunteered,  “… it’s so high up that you can’t see anything from the visitor’s gallery … you’ll have to watch on the TV monitor.”

*** Apple, Wen Wei Po, South China Morning Post, all Jan. 15, 2013.

 suzpepper@gmail.com

 

CONTAINING THE DAMAGE: CY Leung’s First Policy Address

Jan 24

Posted by Suzanne in Letters from Hong Kong | No Comments | Print This Post Print This Post

      Hong Kong’s new Chief Executive has grown accustomed to telling audiences he knew it was a tough job, if he couldn’t take the heat he would have stayed out of the kitchen, that’s the way he likes it, and so on.  But considering all that he promised before his election on March 25 last year, and comparing those promises with what he spelled out in his first policy address last week, only one conclusion seems possible:  he really did not know just how tough a job it would be.  Refusing to admit it only reinforces the case his most ardent critics have built against him on the matter of integrity.         

             That he really did not know is a more interesting possibility to explore, however, because it suggests he probably suffers from the same political handicap that forced his mentor, Tung Chee-wah, to resign mid-way through his second term of office.  Tung was Hong Kong’s first post-1997 Chief Executive.  Having been surrounded by pro-Beijing loyalists and conservatives, and handpicked by them for appointments throughout his political life, Leung like Tung seems not to have appreciated the new political reality of post-colonial Hong Kong.  It now has an opposition that cannot be completely discounted, as Beijing has tried its best to do, because the opposition is strong enough to weaken and discredit a chief executive even if it cannot directly remove him.   In any event, it’s a lesson that he, like his mentor before him, is being forced to learn the hard way.

THE PROMISES

           Leung Chun-ying’s pre-election promises went though several revisions as do those of most politicians on the campaign trail.   But his goals, spelled out in a final 80-page summation manifesto, have not varied and they are what initially attracted a number of grassroots pro-democracy activists to his candidacy.   He was and remains committed to populist livelihood issues with the many consequences of  Hong Kong’s growing wealth gap foremost among them.  His March 2012 manifesto was sweeping and comprehensive in scope, pro-active in design, and far more impressive than that of his chief opponent Henry Tang.*  Here at last was someone who actually seemed interested in getting things done.

          Housing is currently  Hong Kong’s biggest headache.  The poorest are still living in bed-space cubicles and sub-divided apartments while the supply of public housing cannot meet a demand made worse by middle-income families unable to afford their own accommodation due to skyrocketing prices  …  made still worse by new-rich mainlanders investing in high-end properties.  Leung promised something for everyone although not necessarily to everyone’s liking.  He focused on the thorny matter of land supply for long term planning and short-term use, proposing to open up the closed Hong Kong/mainland border area, resume rural land in the northern suburbs, and coordinate with cross-border projects.   On the land thus acquired, he would build more public rental housing, restart the government-subsidized Home Ownership Scheme, increase mortgage interest deductions, and consider imposing restrictions on home purchases by non-Hong Kong residents. 

        To grow the economy at a faster pace, he promised a new industrial policy, more cross-border initiatives, upgrades for the shipping and financial services industries.  Simultaneously, he promised to formulate a population policy that would focus among other things on the needs of an aging society and on the problem of local births to non-local parents, Hong Kong’s version of the “anchor baby” phenomenon.  Included would be an assessment of the new minimum wage scheme and labor’s demand for standard working hours.  Addressing the problem of poverty more directly, he promised “short, medium, and long-term measures” aimed at its alleviation.    He also promised to work toward guaranteeing as soon as possible 15 years free schooling for all, from early childhood through Hong Kong’s recently expanded 12-year school system.  Sports, culture, and environmental protection were included as well.

        Last but not least, or so those suspicious of his political motives hoped, came his pledges on government administration and the electoral system albeit with far more emphasis on the former than the latter.  To help him implement his ambitious agenda he would need a few more posts, top officials to fill them, and lower-ranking appointees as well.  The division between career civil servants and the new appointed officials (all a post-1997 addition to Hong Kong’s bureaucratic establishment) would be “properly demarcated” to differentiate between political and administrative responsibilities.   He wanted to expand the political accountability component with new “echelons and tiers to encourage young talents to pursue a career in politics through political appointments.”

         At the very end of the long list came constitutional development but he did pledge to carry out Beijing’s most recent mandate.  This promised universal suffrage elections for the Chief Executive and the Legislative Council by 2017 and 2020, respectively.

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT   

          Tell-tale indicators of his failure to grasp Hong Kong’s new political reality came soon after Leung’s formal March 25 election, while he was struggling to form his new administration.  He was sworn in on July First, but the protests against his pro-Beijing ties and suspected communist party membership had continued non-stop from March 25.   Had Leung taken seriously that opposition, he presumably would not have boasted in early June that he aimed to set the world on fire during his “First Hundred Days.”  No need to wait for his first policy address in October, he said.  The initiatives he was planning to help those most in need would have immediate effect (South China Morning Post, June 7).   Two weeks later, Ming Pao Daily did to him what it had done to his opponent during the election campaign by reporting that Leung’s residence, too, had undergone “unauthorized” renovations.  He had failed to acknowledge these while accusing Henry Tang of the same transgression during the campaign.

            Thereafter, Leung’s first hundred days were filled with nothing but trouble (Oct. 9 post).  Tens of thousands marched on Day One calling on him to step down from office just hours after he had formally stepped up.  A month later, tens of thousands marched down the same streets again, this time protesting the mandate he had uncritically accepted from his predecessor to introduce the new compulsory national political education course starting in September.  His just-appointed Secretary for Education seemed clueless as to what all the fuss was about.  The Democratic Party’s then chairman, Albert Ho, went to court in an attempt to have Leung’s election annulled on grounds he had misrepresented himself as a candidate by not acknowledging his unauthorized household renovations.  And so it went.

             Leung said his agenda could not get off the ground without the new posts and appointments he needed to begin, but these needed Legislative Council approval for the additional budgetary allocations.   His intermediaries pleaded with the council, but its calendar had been disrupted by a pan-democrats’ filibuster and the council refused to fast-track his request before the summer recess.  At some point during the summer, it became clear that he had shelved his plan for more top-level posts and appointees.  Then his office announced that he was also delaying his first policy address to the Legislative Council from October to January.  The address is traditionally presented at the start of the council’s legislative year.  And then as the scheduled January 16 date approached, just a week after the council’s historic attempt to impeach him, Leung’s officials began the game of “reducing expectations.”

           A flashback is in order here because the best indicator of Leung’s failure to grasp Hong Kong’s new political reality had actually appeared some time before, in early 2010, when he was just beginning to advertise his interest in making a run for the top job.  One of the ways he did this was by writing many long serious articles for the local Chinese-language press and one of these “policy vision” essays appeared in the Washington, D.C.-based Hong Kong Journal.    

           As Leung explained it there, the best prescription for Hong Kong’s economic future was economic integration with the mainland.  Consequently, he lamented the constraints in moving toward that future, which he blamed on Hong Kongers’ fear of losing their political autonomy.  This he dismissed as “paranoid nonsense” and blamed also the Basic Law’s design for hindering the ability of its “supposedly” executive-led government to lead decisively.  Hence he also dismissed demands for greater legislative responsibility and wrote that “our society has unnecessarily allowed legislators to insert themselves between government and the Hong Kong people.”  As he saw it, “government should engage directly with the people.” **   

          And that was what he began to do as a candidate … until the protests at his town hall meetings grew so great soon after he won that they had to be discontinued.  He knew enough to identify the source of his discomfort.  But like his Secretary for Education and Tung Chee-hwa before them, Leung seemed oblivious to public fears about losing rights and freedoms, and the strength of a popular movement trying to defend them.

CHASTENED AND SUBDUED

          During the past three years, Leung has learned to express his political views less bluntly.  In fact, he scarcely expresses them at all so the extent to which he might have come to appreciate the value of elected representation remains unknown.  But events on the ground and in the Legislative Council are at least forcing him to respect the limitations they can impose.  The boasting and bravado are gone.  Gone too is the promise of initiatives that will take the town by storm and bring speedy relief.  Instead, his January 16 policy address was billed as a long-term five-year blueprint that sounded more like an exercise in damage control.  His delivery remained confident and the populist vision remained as well, with the same special emphasis on housing and poverty, but the specifics seemed to have melted away. ***

        To grow the economy, he fell back on the old Hong Kong government habit of setting up blue-ribbon advisory committees.  A new Economic Development Commission and a Financial Services Development Council are tasked with identifying areas for future growth.  To tackle the most pressing livelihood issues, he is reviving the Commission on Poverty, tasked to begin its work by establishing a poverty line.  A Special Committee on Standard Working Hours will continue studying the problem.  On housing, a new Long-Term Housing Strategy Steering Committee is to formulate plans.  Meanwhile, Leung set a target of 20,000 new public rental housing units to be built each year … from 2018.  The number is up from 15,000 units per year at present and nowhere near enough to meet demand.  More than 200,000 households are currently on the waiting list for these public rental units.

        Hardly worth the delay from October to January, scoffed his critics.  Others took their cue from his title calling his maiden effort pragmatic and modest … and a wise move given his credibility problem.  But the fireworks and the final step in the annual policy address ritual are yet to come.  So many legislators have signed up to have their say that three days (Jan. 30, 31, Feb. 1) have been reserved on the Legislative Council’s calendar for the “motion-of-thanks” debate.  Legislators will then talk for hours before giving his address a final thumbs up or down.  Pan-democrats have already declared their intention to tell him “no thanks”  …  (to be continued).

 *  C.Y. Leung, Manifesto for the Chief Executive Election 2012 (March 2012): www.ceo.gov.hk/eng/pdf/manifesto.pdf

**  Leung Chun-ying, “Does Hong Kong Have the Policy Vision Needed for the Coming Years?,” Hong Kong Journal, Jan. 1, 2010:  http://www.hkjournal.org/archive/2010_spring/1.htm

***  The 2013 Policy Address:  Seek Change, Maintain Stability, Serve the People with Pragmatism:  http://www.policyaddress.gov.hk/2013/eng/index.html

 suzpepper@gmail.com