Hong Kong Legislators Say Long Goodbye

The last day of democracy for Hong Kong’s legislature turned out to be its longest as lawmakers worked until sunrise today in a marathon session to pass bills protecting--if only for two more days--the territory’s freedoms.

As the neon displays marking the territory’s Tuesday return to Chinese rule winked out in early dawn, the Legislative Council debated new bills guarding civil rights and bade their farewells to Britain and the democratic reforms that brought them to office.

“Goodbye, goodbye, colonial Hong Kong,” said Democratic Party member Szeto Wah, one of 27 legislators who will lose their seats Tuesday--two years before the elected term was supposed to end. “I will not take a step back. I will persist, and I will serve with my whole being. I am a Chinese with Hong Kong characteristics.”

There were more snores than tears as the night wore on, plus a few jokes and settlings of scores. But the tone was for the most part melancholy and valedictory, as members honored those with whom they had fought, forged alliances and would now prematurely part ways.

“It is an emotional session,” legislator Leong Che-Hung said. “Not only is it the last meeting under 150 years of colonial rule, it is a big farewell to colleagues who could not ride the through train--they are victims of the Sino-British squabble. Let us hope that we see them here again in the future.”

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Because China objected to the way the council was elected in 1995, under changes introduced unilaterally by Britain, come Tuesday the elected body will be pushed aside by an appointed council approved by Beijing.

For members such as Liberal Party leader Allen Lee, who has been a lawmaker for 19 years and will continue under the new government, it was a stop on a legislative carousel: from an appointed legislature to an elected one and back to an appointed body.

The midnight lawmaking will have proved good practice for some. More than half the current, elected council will be sworn in as members of the new Provisional Legislature after the hand-over; and before the sun rises on the first day of Chinese sovereignty, those same members will change back some of the laws they passed in this week’s session.

At immediate stake are several laws protecting citizens’ privacy, laws defining subversion and sedition, and amendments to the Bill of Rights passed in the early hours today.

But the larger issue is a democratic and open government.

“It’s a sad thing,” said legislator Margaret Ng, who will also lose her seat. “Just as we were in the process of democratizing, the legislature is being disbanded. It’s very unfair to the public who have cast their votes.”

The Provisional Legislature is meant to stay in office just a year, until a new council can be elected. But during its term, the Provisional Legislature will define the rules for the new elections, which are expected to reduce the number of seats of Hong Kong’s most popular party and Beijing’s least favorite: the Democrats. Now, the Democrats and their allies hold 37 of the 60 seats.

Just as the Legislative Council did not go quickly from the colonial building’s wood-paneled chambers, the Democrats will not go quietly.

While the replacement Provisional Legislature is being sworn in at 1:30 a.m. Tuesday--after the grand hand-over ceremony--the Democrats’ leader, Martin Lee, plans to deliver a farewell from the colonnaded balcony of the building, “like Romeo,” he said.

If he is locked out of the building, he will climb up by ladder, Lee said.

The U.S. and British governments, which have called the Beijing-approved Provisional Legislature “unwarranted and unnecessary,” will stage their own protest Tuesday.

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British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright have decided not to attend the council’s swearing-in ceremony as a way of showing their disapproval.

But the effect of their celebrated boycott was diluted Thursday when Washington and London announced that their Hong Kong consuls will stay to witness the inauguration.

Albright defended the move Friday while in Hanoi, saying it is necessary to keep working-level contact with the new administration because the U.S. has commercial interests here.

But the new move was attacked by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) in Washington.

“The signal to Beijing is a wink and a nod that it will be business as usual,” he said.