Beijing Has a Problem: Its Man in Hong Kong

To ease public discontent in the wake of massive anti-government demonstrations last year, Beijing’s new leaders showered Hong Kong with economic benefits in the belief that public dissatisfaction was driven by financial hard times.

Seven months later, they face an unsettling truth: Hong Kong’s restiveness is related less to the economy than to the performance of the territory’s beleaguered chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa -- a man who came to power with Beijing’s blessing. Never someone to inspire great confidence, Tung compiled a particularly dismal record last year that lost him the confidence of every important political constituency that once backed him.

“He’s not a lame duck -- he’s a dead duck,” summed up Michael DeGolyer, director of the Hong Kong Transition Project, which has charted public attitudes in the territory for the past decade. “Anywhere else, either his party would replace him or there would be elections.”

For those pressing to broaden Hong Kong’s limited democracy to include the election of both the chief executive and all 60 members of the territory’s Legislative Council by universal suffrage, Tung’s continued presence is the most persuasive argument that the system that brought him to power doesn’t work.

Tung was chosen for a second five-year term in 2001 by a carefully screened group of 800 Hong Kong elites. In next September’s Legislative Council elections, half the seats will be filled by popular election and half selected by a variety of special interests.

Although political commentators and analysts in the territory, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997, talk openly about getting rid of him before his term expires, dumping Tung carries huge risks for Beijing. It would be an embarrassing admission that its man wasn’t up to the job.

In addition, no authoritarian government would want to convey the impression that one of its leaders had been driven from office partly because of pressure from the street. In Tung’s case, that impression might be difficult to avoid. Last July, his government was the focus of the largest anti-government protest -- half a million strong -- on Chinese soil since the Tiananmen Square demonstrations in Beijing 14 years earlier.

But for Beijing, the stakes are higher than that. Removing Tung would raise questions about the limits of the political experiment known as “one country, two systems,” in which Hong Kong is part of China but enjoys a degree of political autonomy, limited democracy and most basic human rights, including a free press and due process of law. Beijing has long seen some version of this formula as a way to fulfill its dream of reuniting Taiwan with the mainland.

“Tung’s departure is the last thing the government wants,” said Lau Kai-keung, a Hong Kong delegate to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, an advisory body to the mainland government.

Still, leaving him in place appears certain to increase pressure for the kind of democratic reforms China wants to avoid. The dilemma has fueled speculation that his departure might somehow be finessed through claims of ill health or other personal reasons.

Tung’s political nose dive began early last year with his refusal to fire his scandal-plagued financial secretary, Antony Leung, and the chaotic early days of the SARS crisis. Leung eventually resigned. It culminated in his failure to ram through a highly unpopular anti-subversion bill.

Today, those in Hong Kong’s government say Tung has become increasingly detached from the day-to-day business of government, listening only to a few trusted cronies. He appears to have few other supporters.

The territory’s influential big-business interests, which in 1997 saw him as a safe bet and one of their own -- Tung was once a shipping magnate -- have deserted him. A recent poll carried out by the Hong Kong Transition Project found that nearly 83% of the territory’s business and service-sector leaders expressed dissatisfaction with his government’s performance.

Trounced in local district council elections because they backed him, the pro-Beijing political parties that once guaranteed Tung a majority in the Legislative Council now keep their distance. The largest of these, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong, recently chose a new leader known for his opposition to Tung.

And last month, it became clear that Beijing had also lost faith in the chief executive, as it publicly took the delicate issue of electoral reform out of his hands. Tung’s comments on the subject in his Jan. 7 annual policy address and a written clarification from Beijing moments after the chief executive finished speaking showed that no such process could even begin without the mainland government’s approval.

China’s leaders have also cut Tung out of the initial consultative phase of electoral reform. Instead, a special three-member task force headed by the territory’s No. 2 political figure, Donald Tsang, will work with mainland legal experts and government institutions to develop a framework on how best to move forward.

In many ways, Beijing’s action marked a watershed in its relations with Hong Kong. According to those who track the relations closely, it was the first time a chief executive had cited Beijing as a reason for a policy direction.

They said it was also the first time since Hong Kong’s return to Chinese rule that the mainland government had issued a formal statement on Hong Kong affairs.

Pro-democracy advocates see Beijing’s early involvement as premature and the creation of a task force to study the issue as unnecessary.

“Differences come up as you move into discussions, so setting prior conditions for consultations is wrong,” said Margaret Ng, a Legislative Council member pushing for direct, popular election of the next chief executive in 2007 and all 60 council members in 2008. “They are creating problems where none exist.”

Others disagree. Mainland government advisor Lau, for example, says the shift represents an assessment by Beijing’s new leadership that former President Jiang Zemin’s policy of dealing with Hong Kong behind the scenes simply doesn’t work.

“Beijing has learned that if you have power, you have to use it or you lose it,” he said. “In the end, ‘one country, two systems’ will be honored, but in areas where the [mainland] government could and should have a role, there will be no hesitation.”

With Tung in effect sidelined on the issue, few are willing to hazard a guess as to how Beijing will handle its first direct attempt to manage the aspirations of Hong Kong’s people.

Initial comments from mainland legal scholars suggest that common ground could be hard to find.

Xiao Weiyun, a Beijing lawyer who helped draft the Basic Law that governs the territory, said on a recent visit to Hong Kong that he thought the 2030s or 2040s would be a more appropriate time to bring in universal suffrage.

Few Hong Kong residents want to wait that long.

The recently published Hong Kong Transition Project survey found that 88% of respondents in the territory wanted the reforms completed in time for the next chief executive election, in 2007.

Pro-democracy advocate Ng said she feared a confrontation with the mainland despite Beijing’s earlier positive responses to problems in Hong Kong.

“All this trust that has been built up could be eroded,” she said.

Lau said he favored careful study of the issue and orderly changes in the Basic Law that would usher in universal suffrage by 2012. But he added that clarity on the issue was needed above all.

“At some stage, a timetable for direct elections will have to come,” he said. “That’s what people are asking for. You can’t satisfy expectations without that.”