J.Y. Wong
Shorenstein Reports on Contemporary East Asia
Number 7
September 1996
The 1996-97 Shorenstein Seminars on Contemporary East Asia presented a public lecture on the future of Hong Kong on Thursday, September 12th, 1996 at the Institute of East Asian Studies.
Dr. J.Y. Wong is an international expert on Hong Kong and a senior lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Sydney, Australia. He received his doctorate from the University of Oxford, and was elected Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He has been elected Visiting Fellow at the Centre of International Studies in the University of Cambridge, the Hoover Institution at Stanford, the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Tokyo, and Zhongshan University in People's Republic of China. Dr. Wong has written four books and numerous articles on international relations.
With the year 1997 rapidly approaching, questions concerning the political and economic future of Hong Kong after the Chinese takeover have never been more urgent. The upcoming incorporation of the capitalist entrepot known worldwide for its financial prowess and record-holding per-capita ownership of Rolls Royces into an agriculture-based economy controlled by an authoritarian political party is, in the words of J.Y. Wong, "the most dramatic merger the world has ever seen." In "The Future of Hong Kong," Wong deals with the history and future prospects of Hong Kong after 1997. Will Hong Kong, he asks, "survive" as a "free, capitalist, rich, efficient society?"
To date, Wong notes, observers of the Hong Kong scene have held a rather dim view of Hong Kong's ability to withstand the challenges of 1997. By emphasizing the negative, writers and scholars have largely echoed of the views of Hong Kong's prodemocracy politicians, many of whom fear for the future of their hard-won democratic reforms. It is often the case that these pro-democracy politicians, not local business leaders, are the ones interviewed most extensively by the media, so it is not surprising that a pessimistic consensus has emerged. Local business leaders, by contrast, give priority to "economic freedom, over and above political freedom" and thus tend to be much less worried about certain curtailments of democratic freedoms after 1997.
In the midst of these bleak assessments of post-1997 Hong Kong, J.Y. Wong offers a note of cautious optimism. The dream of a liberal, democratic Hong Kong was never in the historical or political cards, but was largely a vision set in motion by a small but influential group of native-born Hong Kong politicians and Hong Kong governor Christopher Patten. Looking more closely at what China has promised to change and leave intact in Hong Kong after 1997, in addition to how businesses there have been adjusting to upcoming changes, Wong argues, justifies his more optimistic prediction. China, despite its more conservative political atmosphere since 1989, still has not changed it basic position toward Hong Kong: that Hong Kong life will not change for 50 years.
A flashback to Hong Kong in 1984 reveals just how problematic and unrealistic were the plans to legislate into being a liberal, democratic polity. By 1984, Hong Kong was a hybrid of a colonial state in which the executive was not accountable to the people, and a society that had already become accustomed to an increasingly large degree of press and other freedoms. Although democratic rights were not enshrined in a legal document, Wong notes, freedom of the press was nonetheless "an important legacy" of British rule. The ground rules for political participation were also quietly liberalized; in 1984 Hong Kong residents who sought to demonstrate were no longer required to obtain police permission, as had been the case earlier. Politics also became more "transparent," particularly after the state realized that ordinary people's complaints concerning political and police corruption were justified. In 1974, the Hong Kong government mounted a determined effort to rid the police of corruption; in subsequent years, district offices were established for the express purpose of providing a safe haven for lodging complaints against the government. The result of these efforts was that by 1984 Hong Kong had one of the "cleanest" governments in the world. Politics also became more, although certainly not completely, democratic, with the establishment of district boards in 1981.
Most of the current problems, as the wellspring of the pessimistic predictions for Hong Kong, can be dated and traced to British attempts to change the 1984 status quo -- a status quo that was acceptable to the Chinese authorities. In 1985, the British attempted to change the composition of Hong Kong's legislative body (Legco) by including a greater proportion of officials directly elected by the people. In 1991, the British introduced a formal Bill of Rights; the same year also witnessed the emergence of many political parties. In 1992, Govenor Patten introduced what Wong calls a "radical program" of constitutional reform, a reform that would make the executive accountable to the legislature and make the latter institution "broadly representative" of the people. By 1994, hopes were high that a new, democratic Hong Kong would emerge from the shadows of the departing colonial power.
The Chinese government did not look favorably upon these changes to the 1984 political status quo and launched vituperative and linguistically creative personal attacks on Patten, calling him, among other things, a "clown," "prostitute," and "excrement stirrer." According to Wong, these personal attacks reflected Beijing's "surprise" and "frustration" with Patten's bold attempt to widen democratic participation. Beijing wanted to inherit a colonial, not a democratic, Hong Kong, a government in which Legco would serve as a "rubber stamp" to an autocratic executive.
While Wong lauds Patten's motives to further democratize Hong Kong, he also argues that Patten's proposals revealed a certain ignorance of power relations in China and of traditional Chinese values and unfamiliarity with modern Chinese history. It was thus unrealistic for Patten not to have expected a harsh reaction from Beijing. For instance, Patten should have realized that his reforms could not but have a demonstration effect in China, particularly in Guangdong, a province that already has strained relations with Beijing because of its growing independence from the center. In fact, the Guangdong press provided extensive coverage of Patten's proposals. As a result, Beijing feared that, should Hong Kong residents be allowed more freedom, residents on the mainland would follow suit and raise similar demands. Before long, it would be difficult to reassert political control.
In addition, Patten also demonstrated insensitivity to the difficult relations between China and Britain. For China, the years 1839-1949 were characterized above all by national humiliation, often at the hands of the British (especially but not limited to the Arrow and Opium Wars, wars that resulted in the loss of Hong Kong). China's acquiescence to Patten's terms for the takeover in 1997 would thus conjure up memories of its past weakness vis-a-vis the West. Not surprisingly, China mounted a vigorous, nationalistic defense of its sovereignty over Hong Kong.
Finally, Patten's proposals for more democracy in Hong Kong flew in the face of "traditional Chinese values." According to Wong, the constitutional reforms contradicted a basic Confucian premise of good government, that of "rule of virtue," not "rule by law." Throughout Chinese history, officials were selected through imperial examinations; those who passed the exams came to see themselves as superior to commoners by virtue of having more culture and morality. This system, Wong suggests, led to a "firmly entrenched concept of master-subject relationship," which has remained unchanged to this day. Given this conception of politics, it was inconceivable that the chief executive of Hong Kong could be held accountable to a "legislature elected by the subjects," as Patten proposed.
Patten's well-intentioned but ill-conceived plans quickly came to naught in the face of China's intransigence. Wong notes that Beijing surprised Patten by quickly promising (through its Preliminary Working Committee on Hong Kong) to scrap a directly elected legislature and to dilute the Bill of Rights to allow the government to maintain "law and order" after 1997. Beijing leaders moved so quickly to suppress the possibility of more freedoms because they "had personal experience of how dangerous [freedoms] could be to their authority." Hong Kong reporters, Wong argues, influenced the thinking of their counterparts on the mainland and led many of the latter to participate in the 1989 protests. Testimony to Patten's naivete and misunderstanding of the PRC leadership was his failure to develop a contingency plan in the event of Beijing's veto. As it now stands, Patten's plans are dead in the water, even though he has not yet publicly admitted this.
Despite the setbacks to Patten's plans for a liberal, democratic Hong Kong, Wong remains a cautious optimist regarding Hong Kong's future. Shelving what were essentially pipe dreams for U.K.-style democracy on the island allows us to pay more attention to what has not changed in China's policy toward Hong Kong, as well as the positive steps China has taken to ensure political stability and economic growth after 1997. Politically, Beijing has promised to preserve "intact" the 1974 Independent Commission against Corruption, a government arm that has also served as a model for anticorruption drives on the mainland. Retaining the services of this commission will help Hong Kong remain a "clean" government. Also in this vein, Wong reminds us that Beijing has vowed to "preserve the Hong Kong civil service, including the police force." The Hong Kong civil service -- a key component of its smooth-running bureaucracy -- will remain in the hands of permanent residents of Hong Kong, not cadres brought over from the mainland. This policy will provide continuity in essential services and prevent the emergence of widespread corruption.
On the economic front, there are also reasons to believe that the 1997 transition will not lead to disaster. The Hong Kong economy is now "almost completely integrated" with the economy of South China, and it continues to serve as the "service, financial, and communications capital of the whole of China." But even if mainland cities (such as Shanghai) surpass Hong Kong as leaders in these fields on a national scale, Hong Kong will nevertheless remain the economic "capital" of South China. Confidence in Hong Kong's economic future has also "consolidated" in the international business community. A 1995 survey of international businesses in Hong Kong showed that 91 percent regard Hong Kong as a "good business environment in the next five years," and 46 percent expect to "expand" their business operations there in the next three years. Foreign investment in Hong Kong also shows no signs of slowing. In 1994, total foreign investment in the island was $440 billion, four times the amount invested in 1984. These figures show that, despite the current flap over democratization (which has led to the sense of pessimism), there are still many who are willing to stake their future in a Hong Kong under PRC sovereignty.
In sum, Wong argues that once observers stop "looking at development [in Hong Kong] from a legal and democratic point of view," it is possible to find important reasons to be optimistic about Hong Kong's future. Wong's optimism, however, is guarded. Only if "there are no serious disturbances within China itself," he predicts, will Hong Kong "continue to prosper." Such prosperity will not result in a liberal democratic polity. Instead, Hong Kong's post-1997 government will remain essentially colonial, only this time it will be "subjected to China," not Great Britain.
Summarized by Neil Diamant.
