DIVORCING HONG KONG
William McGurn on Britain's
eagerness to rid itself of the colony without establishing democracy
Hong Kong IT WAS hard to come by outward signs that this, Her Majesty's prize Asian posses- sion, was even aware that a momentous decision about its future was being taken on Wednesday evening, last week. The Star ferry chugged contentedly across the harbour to Kowloon; visiting sailors tried their luck at the girlie bars of Wanchai; while at the Foreign Correspondents' Club an American expatriate sporting a ghastly yellow tee-shirt was getting pleasantly drunk. The governor was in his mansion and all seemed right with his colony. Yet that very evening some 8,000 miles away a small collection of white men, who, it must be conceded, have until now managed the affairs of this' capitalist en- clave very well, were engaged in the first debate on Hong Kong since the agreement to return it to China was reached three years ago. At 11.30 p.m. local time (just about the moment of truth for those sailors in Wanchai) radio sets all over Hong Kong were tuned in to the debate in Parliament, to find out which side the Government would come down on in its own moment of truth. Would there be direct elections here in 1988? They didn't have long to wait. Echoing the great saint, Sir Geoffrey Howe indicated early on that he desired direct elections — but not yet. Officially the final word must await the release of the Hong Kong government's white paper next month, but the answer is now clear. What particularly had the for- eign minister's back up was the presence in London of a group called the Delegation for Democracy in Hong Kong, led by Legislative Councillor Martin Lee. Mr Lee too was clear. He questioned the commit- ment of Whitehall to the full implementa- tion of the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declara- tion and suggested that last year's official survey of Hong Kong public opinion on political reform was rigged to yield incon- clusive results on direct elections.
The folks at home in Britain could be forgiven for wondering why there is so much passion on whether elections are introduced in 1988, as the people here want, or 1991, as China wants and Britain now appears to be going along with. They have become, for better or worse, the symbol of Britain's commitment to the people of Hong Kong, the indicator of whether Britain will seek to implement the accord to the fullest or whether it will permit China to continue to redefine its terms and even violate the provision that stipulates the British Government is to administer the colony without interference from Peking during the transition period.
None of this, of course, is intelligible without reference to the accord itself. Although it did not use the word 'demo- cracy', it did promise that the legislature 'shall be constituted by elections', and more importantly it was sold to Parliament and the people here in a subsequently released white paper that spoke of elec- tions in the years immediately ahead. Numerous quotations to this effect com- prised the bulk of the 28-page position paper of the Delegation for Democracy. Set against these, Sir Geoffrey's assertion that he never actually promised elections in 1988 makes him sound like a divorce lawyer whose client suddenly decides he doesn't want to give the wife the house.
Nor was the Opposition much better. Although members paraded their support for elections this year, they too refrained from even the slightest criticism of the chief obstacle to these elections: China. Liberal, Labour and Tory MPs were so enthusiastic about China's agreement 'in principle' to elections that no one felt it necessary to hold China to them in prac- tice.
The only person who touched on a real issue was Robert Adley, who nevertheless got the wrong end of it when he queried aloud the wisdom of `rush[ing] into direct elections for an assembly none of whose constitutional arrangements have even been decided'. That is the entire point. By 1991, the next earliest date for elections, the basic law that will govern Hong Kong after 1997 will already be in place, and fears are that the Chinese will see to it that it will define a legislature with no power. Elections this year would not only generate public pressure for a more democratic basic law, they would also produce some local political leaders who would have the most claim to represent Hong Kong in the next crucial few years when all the key decisions are being made. That is some- thing that China, and now it appears Britain, are afraid of. Least of all do they want to produce democrats as bright and articulate as Mr Lee.
At least part of the public confusion derives from two contradictory pressures in the accord. The provision that 'the current social and economic systems in Hong Kong will remain unchanged' conflicts with the one stating that 'the laws currently in force in Hong Kong will remain basically un- changed'. The reason has to do with the particular genius of British colonialism. For years Hong Kong has been ruled by an oligarchy of British civil servants in collu- sion with the local wealthy, and the system worked well chiefly because British ad- ministrators were disinclined to exercise the vast powers they had reserved for themselves. But the same system in other hands would most likely not have trans- formed what Lord Palmerston in 1841 contemptuously dismissed as a 'barren island with hardly a house upon it' into a world financial centre. Whatever else the People's Republic of China might be, its leaders have never stood accused of a reluctance to invoke their power.
In their remarks to Parliament the Tories congratulated themselves on having in 1984 negotiated an agreement that did not leave Hong Kong completely high and dry. It was, says Sir Geoffrey, a 'good deal'. And to the extent that the Hong Kong oinlined in that accord would be similar to the Hong Kong of today (with the added benefit of representative govern- ment) he is right. But Yalta was a good deal, too, with itg promise of elections and so forth. The problem was that we never quite got the Eastern Europe that was spelt out in that agreement, and the signs are that we're not going to get the Hong Kong promised in the Joint Declaration.
No one but a few romantics, of course, thought that even Mrs Thatcher, despite her initial bluster about keeping Hong Kong after 1997, could do so against Peking's will, the preference of the people here notwithstanding. The hope was, however, that a prime minister who sent the British navy to the Falklands, who could have a meeting with a communist leader like Mikhail Gorbachev without it degenerating into an American-style lovefest, and who guaranteed that 'Britain shall honour our obligations [to Hong Kong] to the fullest,' would be the last person to opt for quiet acquiescence over public confrontation in matters of princi- ple. Thus the unnatural alignment of forces in last week's debate in Parliament. 'I wish I could say "Blessed be the Conservative government," 'says Mr Lee. 'But how can I, in light of what they are doing?'
William McGurn is on the staff of the Asian Wall Street Journal.
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