Hong Kong, so often trapped under the shadow of a rising China, was suddenly thrown into the spotlight when Edward J. Snowden sought refuge from the U.S. government in our city. The speculation over the 30-year-old whistleblower’s fate, and Beijing’s role in the matter, stirred curiosity over how this territory of seven million has fared in the 16 years since it was returned to China by Britain.
Curious outsiders will have their answer on Monday. While the city’s pro-Beijing elite are celebrating the anniversary of the handover, thousands of people will take to the streets to protest their frustrations with the government, and its eroding autonomy from the mainland.
While many Hong Kongers have some degree of pride in being part of the China success story, the territory’s relationship with the mainland has become more strained in recent years. More than ever, Hong Kongers fear that their personal freedoms and the rule of law are in a precarious state, as a more confident and assertive Beijing hesitates less in interfering with the development of Hong Kong’s democracy.
Tensions between local people and the hordes of mainland visitors flaunting their newfound wealth only add to the increasing sense of disillusionment. Lots of Hong Kong people, particularly the younger generation, blame mainlanders for taking lucrative jobs in the financial sector and for inflating the local property market through their purchases of second and third homes here.
Many Hong Kongers themselves fled from the mainland when the Chinese Communist Party took power in 1949. Much later, in 1989, Hong Kong watched in horror as Beijing cracked down on protesters in Tiananmen Square. Given this history, it’s not hard to understand why people were nervous in the run-up to the handover in 1997.
Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese leader at the time, eager to preserve Hong Kong as a stable, prosperous and vibrant city, offered a solution for governing the territory, summed up with the catchphrase “one country, two systems.”
This vague idea implied that the mainland would not interfere in local affairs, a concept that was enshrined in the Hong Kong miniconstitution, known as the Basic Law. Apart from defense and foreign affairs, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, as it became known, would enjoy “a high degree of autonomy.” Beijing would not send Communist cadres to run the city. Hong Kong’s capitalist and free lifestyle would continue unabated, and most important, the people were promised that the political system would evolve to a democratically elected government.
That process of democratic development is now imperiled. The sticking point is universal suffrage, or, one-person, one-vote.
In the current system, a holdover from colonial times when the British wanted to limit input from the local population, Hong Kong’s political leader, known as the chief executive, is selected by a 1,200-member committee of the business and political elite that is rigged to favor of pro-Beijing candidates. Only 40 of the 70 members of the legislative council are elected by one-person, one-vote, the rest are selected by so-called functional constituencies, professional groups that represent industries like banking, law and teaching.
Mainland leaders have said they would allow a system of universal suffrage for the 2017 chief executive election and the 2020 legislative council vote, giving hope that this otherwise modern city would finally catch up with the democratic world.
But since the pro-Beijing Leung Chun-ying became chief executive a year ago, the pro-democracy camp has had one setback after another.
A system of universal suffrage doesn’t appear overnight. The pro-democracy camp has urged Leung to begin a public consultation process on how to carry out the direct election of the chief executive in 2017. But he has refused to do that or much of anything.
Meanwhile, people from the pro-Beijing camp have been dropping hints that the government should ban certain people from the pro-democracy camp from running for chief executive.
In mid-March, the chairman of the law committee of the National People’s Congress, Qiao Xiaoyang, summoned pro-Beijing legislative council members to Shenzhen and told them that direct election of the chief executive would be held in 2017, but the person must “love the country, love Hong Kong” and cannot “confront” Beijing, according to widely circulated media reports.
Qiao’s remarks were a clear signal that the election Beijing has in mind would be neither free nor fair.
Some pro-Beijing politicians have proposed measures to control the nomination process for chief executive candidates, which would make our system about as free as Iran’s “democracy.” And pro-Beijing politicians have also repeatedly stressed that the so-called functional constituencies are important to Hong Kong’s economic development and should kept in place. This lessens the chance that all legislative council members will be elected by universal suffrage in 2020. The result of this tinkering only further divides Hong Kong from the mainland.
Many Hong Kong people have waited for democracy for a generation — and we’re running out of patience. Unfortunately, in an underdeveloped democracy, taking to the streets is one of the few ways that the people can be heard.
Emily Lau is a member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council and chair of the Democratic Party.