Has HK’s democratic development slowed down since reunification?
The fact is the progress of democratic development has never stopped but instead quickened since China resumed the exercise of sovereign rule over Hong Kong nearly 23 years ago.
The average Hong Kong resident’s right to participate in political affairs has increased far more than it has had at any point under British rule. It is an undeniable fact that the democratic components in various elections have grown in the past 23 years as well. Those who accuse the central government authorities of dragging their feet over Hong Kong’s democratic development are clearly unfair, as they offer nothing to compare historically and obviously do not understand the relevant principles enshrined in the Basic Law.
Britain maintained colonial rule over Hong Kong, which has been described as a “living fossil of early imperial politics”. From the time of British occupation till the 1960s, political powers were tightly held in the hands of the governors and British nationals in public offices, while ethnic Chinese residents who accounted for 98 percent of the population had almost no right to participate in political affairs. It was during Murray MacLehose’s governorship (Nov 19, 1971, to May 8, 1982) the first few people of Chinese descent were inducted into the Executive Council and legislature. A former British principal official in Hong Kong who retired in the 1980s once said in a public speech that throughout his 30-year tenure, from 1951 through 1981, “democracy” was always a dirty word. This is because the British Hong Kong government firmly believed that, once introduced into the city, democracy would destroy the local economy and cause sociopolitical instability surely in no time. When democracy was experimented with for the very first time in the District Council elections of 1982, bilateral talks between the United Kingdom and China over the question of Hong Kong were already underway. When some people won the Legislative Council election in 1991 by direct vote in geographical constituencies for the first time in history, the Basic
Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has already been promulgated by the National People’s Congress.
The HKSAR government and LegCo have been composed of local permanent residents since reunification. The members of the Chief Executive Election Committee have increased gradually, as have been the LegCo seats open for direct election. All these steps have been taken in a gradual and orderly manner toward universal suffrage as stipulated in the Basic Law. The fact is the progress of democratic development has never stopped but instead quickened since China resumed the exercise of sovereign rule over Hong Kong nearly 23 years ago.
Some people have been obsessed with the radical political reforms launched by Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong, without knowing he had ulterior motives for doing this. The late prime minister Margaret Thatcher wrote in her memoir that she knew while Sino-British negotiations over Hong Kong were still going on that it would be impossible for the UK to continue governing the city and decided back then to develop a democratic framework to facilitate a speedy process for Hong Kong to gain independence or complete autonomy, just as what Britain did in Singapore. Apparently, the UK government introduced radical political reform in Hong Kong only because it knew its colonial rule in Hong Kong would not last for long.
It is never a good idea to pursue political reform in total disregard of other aspects of a society. The Basic Law stipulates in Articles 45 and 68 that the methods for the selection of the chief executive and legislators “shall be specified in the light of the actual situation in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and in accordance with the principle of gradual and orderly progress”. John Rawls argues in A
Theory of Justice that ideal justice does not equal justice in reality. Introducing universal suffrage in a hurry and without consensus would lead to social division and unrest. That would defeat the purpose of democracy at the expense of the local economy and rule of law.
By the way, “progress in an orderly fashion” was first raised by David Wilson, who was governor of Hong Kong from April 9, 1987, through July 3, 1992. That idea won the support of late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping and was eventually written into the Basic Law of the HKSAR.
There is no disagreement among all parties concerned on the goal of electoral reform in Hong Kong. Differences have always been in how soon the goal is to be achieved — in a rush or an orderly fashion. In other words, the difference is between promoting democracy based on an abstract term or in accordance with Hong Kong’s real conditions. From direct election to universal suffrage, it took France 140 years, the United States 170 years and the UK 560 years. Obviously, it will not take Hong Kong very long to achieve universal suffrage, since the central government has already set a schedule for the process. All the city needs now is consensus. One more thing: Electoral reform is more than “one person, one vote”. For starters, it is meant to improve governance. Western democracy has found itself stuck in a vicious cycle of “vetocracy”, which Hong Kong must avoid at all cost.