HONG KONG – The
massive public demonstrations by students and young members of the middle-class
that have roiled Hong Kong in recent weeks are ostensibly demands for
democracy. But they actually reflect frustration among a population that has
been poorly governed by a succession of leaders picked by China’s central
government more for their loyalty than their competence.
In fact, the
current near-uprising is the culmination of a long series of demonstrations
since Hong Kong’s handover from the United Kingdom to China in 1997, after Chris Patten,
the last British governor failed to persuade China to allow Hong Kong to
establish a genuine democratic government.
In China’s view,
Patten’s position was hypocritical, even offensive, given that the British had
ruled Hong Kong autocratically. China believed that it could easily manage the
same kind of “executive-led” government that had served Hong Kong well for 150
years under the British.
In order to
placate Hong Kong’s restive population – which included many refugees from
China – a “one country, two systems” policy was embedded in the region’s constitution,
promising Hong Kong “a high degree of autonomy,” except in foreign and defense
affairs for 50 years. Indeed, Hong Kong enjoys many freedoms that the rest of
China lacks, including a judiciary system that is guided by British common law
and independent from the executive branch.
China has yet to
follow through on its second promise: that Hong Kong would elect its chief
executive by “universal suffrage” by 2017. Instead, a committee – initially
comprising 800 members, but since expanded to 1,200 – selects the chief
executive in accordance with the Chinese government’s wishes.
Hong Kong’s first
chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa, was widely viewed as a wise choice. The
Western-educated heir to a shipping fortune, and unusually well connected with
the global elite, Tung was thought to be a conservative, thoughtful,
cosmopolitan man imbued with liberal values and free of ties to the powerful
families that dominated the real-estate industry in the country.
This perception
could not have been more wrong. Tung turned out to be shallow, radical in his
views, more chauvinist than China’s top leaders, and prone to rash
decision-making on important policies with wide-ranging social and economic
consequences. He forced out his competent chief secretary, Anson Chan, a
veteran Hong Kong civil servant, for her colonial background, thereby signaling
his mistrust of the entire civil service that the British had created.
It did not take
long for Hong Kongers to realize that their new leader harbored a deep – and
deeply flawed – “patriotic” worldview that regarded Western “values” as
unsuitable for Hong Kong, the first globalized Chinese city in modern history.
But it was not until Tung tried to ram through draconian internal-security legislation
that many of Hong Kong’s citizens began to feel that they were being overtaken
by the repressive governance from which they were supposed to be exempt. Under
Tung’s leadership, mass protests became a frequent sight in Hong Kong.
The Chinese government
also belatedly recognized that Tung was a liability. In 2004, then-Chinese
President Hu Jintao unceremoniously dressed down Tung on live television. Three
months later, Tung resigned for “health reasons” and was elected Vice Chairman
of the largely symbolic Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.
Tung’s successor,
Donald Tsang, was chosen reluctantly. But he was a senior civil servant, and
seemed to be the only technocrat who could credibly hold together Hong Kong’s
disaffected civil service, which China knew was indispensable to governing the
territory, regardless of its British heritage. But Tsang brought his own
weaknesses to Hong Kong’s government – most notably, greed.
Tsang, who enjoyed spending time with the wealthy on their yachts and in their private suites, pursued a restrictive land policy that boosted real-estate values – and thus the wealth of the land-owning tycoons. Prices rose so high, however, that real estate became accessible only to the very well-off, such as the families of high officials from the mainland. This kind of corrupt behavior earned Tsang a disgraceful exit from government.
Next
came Leung Chun-ying, the current governor. Leung – who was not China’s
first choice for the position – inherited a mess. But he did not do himself any
favors with his cabinet choices, many of whom had mediocre records that
indicated corruptibility. One of them, Paul Chan Mo-po, was tasked with
managing Hong Kong’s land-supply policy, despite a history of corruption in his
personal property transactions. Worse, Leung pushed forward an unpopular plan
to introduce “patriotic education” to Hong Kong, stoking fear among students of
a China-dictated brainwashing.
After the failure of three consecutive Chinese-selected leaders to address Hong Kong’s concerns, it is no wonder that Hong Kong’s citizens are increasingly seeking to loosen China’s grip on their government. But, for the Chinese authorities, this movement reflects an unacceptable challenge to China’s sovereignty.
In this sense,
Hong Kong is locked in a vicious circle – and it is up to China’s government to
break it. The fact is that Hong Kong’s citizens understand that they need
China, and they have no interest in subverting the central government – nor do
they have the power to do so. Their demands for democracy are simply calls for
good governance. They believe that free and fair elections represent their best
chance of having a competent leader – someone like Patten, China’s former
nemesis, who is remembered fondly in Hong Kong.
China’s government
is doing itself a disservice by demanding that Hong Kong’s citizens bow before
their sovereign, while blaming “outside hostile forces” for spurring some kind
of unconstitutional rebellion. Instead, it should focus on the problems created
by the chief executives that it chose for the wrong reasons, and it should
resolve the underlying governance problems that the demonstrations reflect.
Sin-ming Shaw, a former fellow at Oxford University, was, most recently, a visiting scholar at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
