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Beijing tightens its grip on Hong
Kong
By Simon Parker
HONG KONG - It is, on the face of it, a
stunning victory for "people's power". Hong Kong
leader Tung Chee-hwa is stepping down after a
chain of events set off by an anti-government
protest involving more than half a million people.
In reality, however, things are not what they seem
to be.
Tung's credibility may have been
fatally wounded by the massive demonstration on
July 1, 2003, but his demise and the appointment
of his successor appear to have been engineered
almost entirely by Beijing.
Five years
after its return to Chinese sovereignty, Hong Kong
faced the gravest threat to its civil liberties in
the form of Article 23, a proposed amendment to
the Basic Law, the territory's constitution. On
September 24, 2002, the government released its
proposals for the anti-subversion law. Protests
against the bill led to a massive demonstration on
July 1, 2003, when more than 500,000 Hong Kongers
took to the streets to demand the withdrawal of
the article.
In the aftermath, two cabinet
ministers resigned and the bill was shelved
indefinitely and finally withdrawn.
The
last time there was such a huge, disciplined
display of "people's power" on Hong Kong Island
was when a million or so Hong Kongers took to the
streets after June 4, 1989. They were protesting
the Beijing Massacre, the crushing of peaceful
pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square
on that date - thereby destroying forever the myth
that Hong Kong was inhabited by a politically
apathetic citizenry.
Analysts believe that
the chaotic early departure of the unpopular
67-year-old chief executive, Tung, is a further
blow to Hong Kong's democratic aspirations and
reflects a tightening of China's grip on the
former British colony.
Beijing-appointed
Tung, who has run Hong Kong since it was returned
to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, is widely expected
to announce his resignation within days, two years
before the end of his second five-year term. He
will cite ill health, sources say, and will be at
least temporarily replaced by deputy leader Donald
Tsang, Hong Kong's chief of administration. But
the increasing belief in Hong Kong is that Chinese
President Hu Jintao pushed Tung out of his job.
China was shaken by the events of July 1,
2003, and has since intervened increasingly in
Hong Kong affairs, verbally attacking
pro-democracy legislators and then ruling out
universal suffrage in the territory until at least
2008. Now Beijing appears to have addressed the
leadership issue.
It was no coincidence
that news of Tung's resignation was leaked from
sources in Beijing, nor was it a coincidence that
the speculation was preceded by the announcement
that he would be elevated to a position on the
Beijing-based Chinese People's Political
Consultative Committee - anything but a powerful
decision-making body.
"What has happened
is the harbinger of tighter control of Hong Kong
by Beijing," said a veteran China watcher. "Hu
Jintao and [Premier] Wen Jiabao decided the nation
and Hong Kong cannot afford to have two more years
of Hong Kong policy drift and two more years of
inaction and poor decisions. They decided that
enough is enough," he said, speaking on condition
that he not be identified.
A key factor
was the departure of former Chinese president
Jiang Zemin, who chose his Shanghai compatriot
Tung to run Hong Kong and secured Tung's
reappointment for a second five-year term in 2002.
When Jiang gave up his last top post with China's
military commission in the autumn, President Hu no
longer had to consult him over the future of Tung,
whom Jiang repeatedly defended in the face of
criticism of his bumbling performance and lack of
responsiveness to the popular will.
Hu
signaled his intentions in the clearest way
imaginable when he publicly upbraided Tung in
front of his own ministers at a meeting at Macau's
fifth handover-anniversary celebrations last year.
With television cameras filming every
uncomfortable second, Hu barked at the Hong Kong
leader: "Identify your inadequacies. Raise the
standard of your administration and improve your
governance."
At the same meeting, the
president singled out Tsang, the man believed to
have been chosen by Beijing as Tung's successor,
and shook his hand warmly.
Hong Kong
pro-democracy stalwart Martin Lee said: "If [Tung]
had any sense of dignity he would have resigned
then. Maybe he had to be forced to resign - we
just don't know."
Democratic Party
legislator Dr Yeung Sum said he felt
"uncomfortable" with the perception that China's
central government appeared to be able to so
easily engineer a change of leadership in Hong
Kong. Although there was no confirmation of
whether Tung jumped or was pushed, Sum said,
"There must have been pressure from the central
government, and that worries me."
Now the
issue of succession lies ahead and there is a
growing belief that the Chinese president will
usher in Tsang - a bow-tie-wearing former
financial secretary under British colonial rule
who has waged a clever low-key campaign to win
Beijing's support.
Although the
demonstrators of July 1, 2003, may have achieved
one of their goals in deposing Tung, their main
objective has been thwarted. There is no sign of
universal suffrage in Hong Kong and the next chief
executive will, as before, be chosen by a
pro-Beijing 800-member election committee. That
committee is expected to make its selection within
six months of Tung's formal resignation, and
analysts believe their choice may have already
been made for them.
Lawmakers in Hong Kong
say that Tsang was beaming and shaking hands with
everyone as he stopped in on a Legislative Council
session on Wednesday afternoon. He behaved "like a
king", one unnamed legislator told the South China
Morning Post newspaper.
Martin Lee - who
described the deposing of Tung as "the end of Hong
Kong people running Hong Kong" - was among those
who observed him and saw some legislators offering
Tsang their congratulations.
"I have never
seen him looking so good," he said. "I didn't
congratulate him because I never congratulate
someone who is not democratically elected."
(Inter Press Service) |
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