Hong Kong's middle class warms to Beijing
By Augustine Tan
HONG KONG - Beijing chalked up significant middle-class support in Hong Kong's
Legislative Council (Legco) elections on Sunday, with pro-government stalwarts
like ex-security chief Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee and academic Priscilla Leung
Mei-fun winning seats in the law-making chamber.
More telling are the pro-Beijing camp's gains in the functional constituencies
(FC), which represent business and professional groups involved in the
electoral process, where the pro-democracy camp lost three of the seven FC
seats it previously held.
The FCs are largely the preserve of the middle class and make up half of the 60
seats in the chamber, but are widely disparaged by
the pro-democracy camp with only seats held by them regarded as genuinely
reflecting middle-class concerns.
The middle class has been in Beijing's sights since 2003, when half-a-million
people turned out to demand the ouster of Tung Chee-hwa, Hong Kong's first
elected chief executive. The people were angered by plans to add controversial
anti-subversion bill Article 23 to the Basic Law - the constitution which has
governed Hong Kong since the British handover in 1997 - and had borne the brunt
of the SARs epidemic and the prolonged Asian financial crisis.
Beijing's wooing of the middle class was supposed to have begun in December
last year with Ip securing the Hong Kong Island seat left vacant by the death
of Ma Lik, chairman of the pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for the Betterment
of Hong Kong (DAB). But former chief secretary Anson Chan, the self-styled
"conscience of Hong Kong" upset Beijing's plans by winning a landslide victory
(see Grand dames let
rip in Hong Kong cat fight Asia Times Online, Oct 16, 2007). She had
presented herself as a "bridge" between Hong Kong and Beijing.
Hong Kong Island, which holds six of the 60 Legco seats, is a middle-class
stronghold and firmly behind the pro-democracy camp. It has grudgingly given
only one or two seats to the pro-Beijing forces since elections were introduced
on the eve of the British departure, although DAB founder Tsang Yok-sing easily
retained his seat on Sunday.
Ip, running on a separate, independent slate, won just as easily, while in
Kowloon West Patricia Leung just made it with less than 20,000 votes. Both
women ran as independents but left no one in any doubt that they were squarely
in the pro-Beijing or pro-establishment camp.
Until the anti-Tung campaign, the unstated agreement within the pro-Beijing
camp seemed to be that the Liberal Party represented the business sector but
also spoke up for the middle class, while the DAB, an offshoot of the leftist
Federation of Trades Union, represented the lower-income groups.
Unnerved by the mammoth demonstration and the worldwide agitation against
Article 23, Liberal Party chairman James Tien Pak-chun reneged on his party's
promise to support the bill. That very night he resigned from Tung's advisory
Executive Council and flew to Beijing to explain his position. He was not
received. His Liberal Party was doomed from that moment.
The party, largely supported by entrepreneurs, does not have deep roots in Hong
Kong, which explains why its leaders have successfully contested direct
elections only in the New Territories.
The seats in the New Territories are controlled by the Heung Yee Kuk (literally
"rural assembly"), a rural administration set up by the British in 1959 after
it banned a previous kuk set up by villagers in the 1920s. The Heung Yee
Kuk has been controlled by Beijing almost from day one, and its leader, Lau
Wong Fat, is a key member of the Liberal Party. Since the return of Hong Kong
to China he has thrown his support behind the Liberals without interference
from Beijing.
In the run-up to Sunday's polls, the DAB publicly demanded the support of the kuk.
They got it. All Liberal candidates, led by its chairman James Tien and vice
chairman Selina Chow Leung Shuk-yee, were booted out, leaving the party with
only seven FC seats in the new Legco and an uncertain future.
A withdrawal of the "Beijing mandate" must be a matter of conjecture; it is not
something that is talked about even if true. Besides, the Liberal Party was
seriously damaged by scandals plaguing the tourist industry in general and the
Tourist Promotion Board in particular. The board was for many years headed by
Selina Chow and recently by Tien. The party had, in fact, regarded the board
and the travel industry as its fiefdom.
Disenchantment arising from these scandals was underscored by the party's loss
of the FC for the tourism sector to lawyer Paul Tse Wai-chun, whose claims to
fame include posing nude for an entertainment magazine - which got him
suspended from law practice for some months - and walking around town dressed
up in a pink outfit like a comic-book Superman. His election banners featured
him in a Superman outfit.
Tse's victory, along with those of other radicals, has been met with disquiet
within the pro-democracy camp. And this is where Beijing stands to make further
gains in wooing the middle class.
The rise of the radicals was probably the most ironic result of Sunday's poll.
It had been widely believed, even by the leaders of the pro-democracy camp,
that pro-Beijing candidates would sweep the board, the Democratic Party would
be reduced to a minor role, the Civic Party would assume leadership of the
anti-Beijing forces, and the enigmatic "Long Hair" Leung Kwok-hung and his
newly-formed League of Social Democrats would be history.
The new reality: slight numerical improvement for the pro-Beijing sector,
slight losses for the Democratic and Civic parties but big gains for the League
of Social Democrats (LSD). Previously they had two seats, now they have three,
and all three were won with handsome majorities.
Before 2004, former journalist Emily Lau Wai-hing was generally regarded as
Hong Kong's most "radical" legislator. She was "guilty" of flaunting her
admiration for Taiwan's independence movement, and her participation in hunger
strikes had earned her the nickname of "street-sleeper Hing". The previous
election brought Leung fully into the political framework and frequently upset
decorum in the legislature.
He has now been joined by "Mad Dog" Wong Yuk-man, a long-time Kuomintang
supporter, whose outbursts are as raucous as they are vitriolic. His ominous
promise on winning was: "There will be good shows!" The third LSD legislator is
Chan Wai-yip, previously of the Democratic Party. He also has a long record of
the kind of street action that the middle class frowns upon - like sleeping on
railway tracks to make his point.
The proliferation of pro-democracy groups led to conflicts during their
election campaigns. The readiness and speed with which the radical elements
took their quarrels to the streets was at least disconcerting to the middle
class professionals in the Civic and Democratic parties.
The professionals - lawyers, doctors, accountants - are finding China ever more
attractive and the radicalism, represented by "Long Hair" and "Mad Dog"
repulsive. The result was the loss of key middle class FC seats - medical,
accountancy and information technology - to pro-establishment candidates.
It should not be long before Beijing's united front specialists begin to
consolidate these gains, perhaps helped along by a split within the
pro-democracy camp. This may be just what "Mad Dog" Wong fears when he said: "I
hope the pan-democratic camp will forget the rows we had during the election
and co-operate well in the coming Legislative Council."
But the bickering has bitten deep, increasing fears among professionals that
the Legco may be headed in the direction of Taiwan's raucous legislature, where
the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) radicals periodically resort to violence
to stall debates and scupper bills.
Hong Kong's radicals have long been strong admirers of the DPP and former
president Chen Shiu-bian - at least until he got mired in corruption charges.
While the local and foreign media have exulted in the pro-democracy camp's
retention of enough seats to forestall any changes to the Basic Law, which
Beijing has vowed not to do since it introduced the "mini-constitution" - the
establishment and the pro-Beijing camp is smirking with satisfaction over its
gains among the middle class.
Augustine Tan is a freelance journalist based in Hong Kong.
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