Posted on 08/06/2002 12:38:38 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
On July 1, Hong Kong marked two milestones: the fifth anniversary of the handover to the People's Republic of China and the swearing in of Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa for his second term in office. The Chinese normally consider such occasions "Double Happiness" and therefore deserving of jubilation. However, the anniversary celebration was, as Reuters reported, low-key--a fact the respected international news service attributed to the gloom pervading the tiny territory of 7 million people.
Compared to the festivities five years ago, the atmosphere surrounding the anniversary was sober. Inside Hong Kong's Convention Center, a newly sworn-in Tung gave a somber speech in which he admitted the city faced "unprecedented difficulties" and that the road to solving its current economic problems would be "long and arduous." Outside the air-conditioned center, about 400 people from more than 30 pro-democracy groups protested against increasing layoffs, the government's failure to right the economy and emerging threats to freedom and civil rights.
To many in Hong Kong, the July 1 event was nothing to celebrate. More than 50 percent of residents reported dissatisfaction with Tung in a recent survey by the Hong Kong Transition Project. The unelected 65-year-old tycoon will nevertheless remain Hong Kong's top officer for the next five years. Most people in the Special Administrative Region are apparently dissatisfied about being unable to select their own leaders. A far greater concern, however, is their worsening economic situation after five years of Beijing rule.
In the lead-up to the handover in 1997, Hong Kong's economy was prosperous, enjoying an annual growth rate of 7 percent. Today, Hong Kong is wrestling with a myriad of economic troubles. The economy is growing at about 1 percent a year and the unemployment rate has more than tripled in the past five years to hit a record high of 7.4 percent.
Property prices dropped by more than half and a third of families are said to be living below the poverty line. To top it all off, an unprecedented budget deficit, spiraling consumer confidence and an exodus of expatriate professionals are adding to worries about the SAR's future.
The political situation is no better. Although people still nominally enjoy the freedoms of assembly, religion and speech, recent attempts to practice these freedoms have raised questions about a creeping loss of civil liberties. Kari Huus, an international reporter and editor for MSNBC.com, recently enumerated five examples to illustrate the "slow, steady erosion of rights" in Hong Kong.
The first example cited was that of Harry Wu, a U.S. citizen born in China who was recently denied entry to Hong Kong. The reason for the refusal was security--Wu is a human-rights activist. A second hint of the SAR's declining civil liberties was the forced dispersal of peaceful June 4 vigil where thousands of people rallied to commemorate the anniversary of the 1989 massacre at Tiananmen Square. Third, practitioners of Falun Gong, a spiritual group banned by the PRC in July 1999, were arrested in Hong Kong on the spurious charge of blocking the sidewalk.
Fourth, three democracy activists who were caught demonstrating without a permit were prosecuted by Hong Kong authorities. This was the first case made based on an amendment requiring a permit for public demonstrations, which was added to Hong Kong's lawbooks after Beijing took the reins. The fifth and last example cited was the dismissal of Jasper Becker, an old China hand and journalist with Hong Kong's South China Morning Post. Officially, Becker was fired for insubordination, although it was reported that his writing was critical of Beijing.
People are said to be worried that further restrictions on civil liberties will follow in the wake of a proposed antisubversion law. Although the exact wording of the bill is yet unknown, the decision by the government to enact such a law has already made many people uneasy. The proposed law has raised the alarm with democracy advocates, and Kai Strittmatter of the SŸddeutsche Zeitung voiced his doubts that Beijing would honor its promise to safeguard the territory's autonomy for 50 years.
Despite this suspicion, many people still hold out hope that the position of Hong Kong's chief executive will eventually become an elected one. The Basic Law--Hong Kong's constitution--states that the ultimate aim is the selection of the chief executive by universal suffrage in accordance with democratic procedures.
Unfortunately, such hopes were dealt a crushing blow when PRC Vice Premier Qian Qichen announced that full democracy is not an option for Hong Kong. He said that the current system was effective and should be kept intact. Shaw Sin-ming, a longtime professional investor, wrote in Time Magazine recently, "If locals are looking toward a greater say in their affairs in the future, they can forget it." Under the arrangement called "one country, two systems," Beijing promised that Hong Kong would maintain its political and social system and remain essentially unchanged for 50 years. According to an editorial in the Washington Post, the reality after just five years of Beijing rule is that the press has become more docile, demonstrations have become riskier and dissidents from the mainland are no longer welcome. Essentially, the quality of life for people living in the former colony has deteriorated.
Although Tung has vowed to restore the confidence of Hong Kong residents and lead them out of the economic doldrums, many critics doubt that he has the ability to fulfill these promises. Beijing's leaders, who are supposed to give Tung their full support, also have qualms about his leadership style. PRC Premier Zhu Rongji said last year that the SAR administration had a tendency toward "discussion without decision and decision without execution." In an apparent effort to streamline decision-making, Tung introduced what he called an accountability system.
He appointed a new cabinet of 14 policy secretaries to assume authority previously exercised by Hong Kong's professionals. The accountability has been criticized in a Washington Post editorial as an "organization accountable only to Beijing." "The new ministers will not be 'accountable' to voters, who did not elect them, or to Hong Kong's legislature, which cannot censure or remove them. Rather, they will be accountable only to the unpopular Tung, who, in turn, is accountable only to Beijing," read one recent editorial in the Washington Post, which went on to predict that the system would eventually make Hong Kong's top administrators indistinguishable from provincial officials on the mainland.
According to Beijing's design, Hong Kong is supposed to be a showcase to convince the people of Taiwan how good the island would become under PRC rule. However, the truth speaks volumes. Because they now enjoy the right to elect their own president and representatives, the people of Taiwan will not tolerate any attempts to degrade their status and diminish their freedom. That is why many surveys show that most people in Taiwan do not support the "one country, two systems" formula.
According to a recent Asian Wall Street Journal piece by John Tkacik, a former U.S. foreign service officer who served in Beijing, Hong Kong and Taipei, "After five years, this is Hong Kong's 'one country, two systems' model. If its goal is to entice Taiwan to return to the embrace of the Chinese motherland, then it is not working and probably never will."
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