Hong Kong people may enjoy as much horse racing, partying and stock trading as they used to before the former British colony's reversion to China in July 1997, but such passtimes are no guarantee of the same level of political freedom. To Chinese dissident and Tiananmen student activist Yu Houqiang, the Pearl of the Orient is no longer a politically safe haven. Yu lived in Hong Kong for two and a half years before 1997 and was later granted asylum in Canada. On a conference trip to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) in 2005, he received a "polite warning from the authorities." As he departed, two unidentified men approached him at the boarding gate asking for identification. Like a dark messenger, one of them whispered in Yu's ear: "We know where you've been."
Yu made a safe trip home to Canada but has since been put on China's watch list. His comrade Wang Dan, however, has long known that post-1997 Hong Kong is out of bounds to Chinese dissidents. Wang topped Beijing's list of most wanted "counterrevolutionaries" after the 1989 Tiananmen massacre and spent more than six years in jail on a charge of subversion.
Wang was denied entry to attend a June 4th commemoration of Tiananmen in the city in 1999, just one year after he was set free from a Chinese jail and enrolled at Harvard University. Hong Kong authorities told the press that Wang "would hurt the territory's long-term interests"--an excuse that Wang dismisses with a laugh. "I didn't know I was that influential," he jokes in Taipei, as close as he can get to his motherland.
Political Boundaries
A decade ago, Hong Kong waved goodbye to its colonial rulers of 156 years and was forced to count on Beijing's promise of a high degree of political, economic and legal autonomy for at least 50 years, embodied in the "one country, two systems" formula. Its mini-constitution, the Basic Law, which came into effect on the handover day, safeguards the SAR's previous capitalist system and the principle of "Hong Kong people rule" from China's socialist influence. Yet, that has never been the reality, as more and more political boundaries have been set.
"Since China tightened its control over Hong Kong, the future of democratization hasn't been too bright," says Emily Lau, a pro-democracy lawmaker in the city's 60-member Legislative Council (Legco). For example, Lau says that Beijing has recently upped the ante by stripping Legco of the right to propose new laws, raising the threshold for passing bills to favor pro-China legislators and dismissing two municipal councils as well as inserting pro-government representatives onto the city's 18 district councils.
"Beijing believes that, as long as Hong Kong keeps quiet, the pace of political reform [on the mainland] will be under its control," Lau adds. Beijing also fears that any political crisis in Hong Kong will undermine the "one country, two systems" model which it plans to use for "reunifying" Taiwan, despite repeated rejection of the formula by the Taiwanese electorate.
"People in Taiwan see nothing attractive in the Hong Kong model," Taiwan's former Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) chairman Joseph Wu told a visiting British parliamentarian in February this year. MAC polls over the past decade showed that an average 70 percent of Taiwan's people believe that the "one country, two systems" arrangement is not applicable to them--whether it succeeds or not in Hong Kong.
Unlike Hong Kong's people, Taiwan's 23 million have voted in local government elections since the 1950s, in legislative elections since 1992 and have directly elected their president since 1996. Not only do Taiwan's voters find the Hong Kong model irrelevant, but they have also come to see its true colors. "The biggest fundamental change [in Hong Kong] in the past decade has been a greater emphasis on the one country and the increasing opacity of the two systems," says Chang Wu-ueh, a China Studies professor at Tamkang University in Taipei.
The past decade of fading freedoms in Hong Kong and the tilt toward one-China are seen everywhere across Hong Kong's political spectrum. The National People's Congress in Beijing has the final say on Hong Kong's revisions of the Basic Law, while hand-picked candidates for Hong Kong's chief executive are often rubber-stamped by a "small circle" of 800 "representatives," composed mainly of pro-Beijing politicians and business people who shun confrontation with the Chinese authorities. Moreover, Legco is largely elected and controlled by pro-China or pro-government interest groups, and the timetable for universal suffrage has been pushed aside by Beijing. All these signs support the view broadly held in Taiwan that Hong Kong democracy is caged.
Who Wants It?
Half a million Hong Kong people took to the streets on July 1, 2003 to protest against the insertion into the Basic Law of Article 23, a Draconian security clause enabling the government to squash dissent and opposition.
Demonstrators march prior to the "small circle" election for Hong Kong's chief executive this past March, protesting at the lack of democracy involved. (Photo by Larry Hsieh)
Citizens of the SAR also took the opportunity to vent their dissatisfaction with then chief executive Tung Chee-hwa. Widely seen as bowing to Chinese pressure to the detriment of the territory's interests, Tung was blamed for failing to lift the city out of the 1997 financial crisis and being negligent in his handling of the SARS outbreak. During the largest anti-government demonstration anywhere in China since 1989, Hong Kong's people demanded the right to directly elect the chief executive in 2007 and all members of Legco in 2008, an aspiration nixed by Beijing in April 2004.
Outsiders regret that popular efforts in 2003 to pursue full democracy were short-lived. "Hong Kong people certainly envy the degree of autonomy in Taiwan, which their city is so unlikely to parallel that they can only bury their heads in the sand," observes Lu Ping, director of the Kwang Hwa Information and Culture Center, the representative office of Taiwan's Government Information Office in the SAR. But Wang Dan thinks it is a result of the territory's social structure--55 percent of the city's 7 million people are middle class, their salaries ranging between HK$10,000 (US$1,271) and HK$40,000 (US$5,084) per month. "Hong Kong's democratization hinges on the will of its people, most of whom are middle class and care more about economic prosperity," he says.
But local democracy supporters believe there is a chance for Hong Kong to revive its past political flexibility despite its current state. In late 2006, Civic Party legislator Alan Leong was nominated by 132 members of the 796-member committee to run in March's chief executive race. That Leong was qualified to challenge Beijing-anointed Donald Tsang in the "small circle" election cheered Hong Kong's pro-democracy camps and enraged Beijing, even though Tsang won a landslide victory of 649 ballots to 123 on March 25.
The results left local democracy supporters frustrated and neighboring Taiwan lauding the inched-up progress. "Although there was more than one candidate, the result was still pre-ordained. It is an open secret that Beijing hand-picked Tsang to serve another five-year term," says Emily Lau, adding that Tsang does whatever Beijing asks him to. "At least Tsang was forced to face the public and explain his baseline, especially in how to lead Hong Kong toward full democracy," says Tsai Jy-jon, director of MAC's department of Hong Kong and Macao affairs, referring to the first-ever televised debate preceding a chief executive election.
A pro-China government in Hong Kong, however, poses difficulties in maintaining an official relationship with Taiwan. The SAR government, which upholds Beijing's one-China principle, often gives the cold shoulder to Taiwan, denying visas to top-ranking officials and politicians. Tsai thinks that Taiwan's effort over the past decade to improve ties with Hong Kong--inviting the city to set up a representative office in Taiwan, arranging reciprocal visits for politicians from both sides, providing Hong Kong visitors visas on arrival--remains largely one way.
Despite the former colony's standing as a regional news and information hub, a Hong Kong Journalists' Association survey early this year found that 58.4 percent of respondents think local press freedom has deteriorated since 1997 due to self-censorship and the government's tighter grip on the flow of information.
The survey, conducted by Lingnan University, found that about 60 percent of the press think self-censorship is more serious than it was 10 years ago; this is evident in a tendency to downplay negative reports about the PRC government and news which local media workers suspect would be regarded as sensitive by Beijing. Hong Kong's ranking on the Reporters Without Borders' world press freedom index dropped from 18th place in 2002 to 58th last year.
"As independent commentators say, the microphones are off," says Joseph Wu. "They don't want to say anything against Beijing that'll come back to them." The 2005 arrest of Ching Cheong, chief China correspondent for Singapore's Straits Times, on spying charges and the award of a five-year jail term in August 2006 drove home the dubious nature of Hong Kong's press freedom.
Everybody's Got the Fever
Hong Kong's economy, rocked by the 1997 Asian financial crisis and subsequent high unemployment, regained its momentum in 2004 with a GDP growth rate of 8.6 percent, just months after signing the Closer Economic Partnership Agreement with China and allowing Chinese travelers to visit the territory.
"Hong Kong has realized that its economy is highly dependent on China's economic performance," said Kung Ming-hsin, vice president of the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER). "It has no choice but to outperform Shanghai and become the yuan's financial exchange center in the long run." China, therefore, presents both opportunities and risks to Hong Kong as it does to Taiwan.
Hong Kong might be an economic giant but its political system is as antiquated as its trams. (Photo by Larry Hsieh)
Like China's economy, that of Hong Kong cooled down in 2005 and 2006. Taiwanese businesses remain confident in China, and, as of last October, 41 Taiwan companies were listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange. "More Taiwanese companies are waiting in line to go public in Hong Kong," says Luo Huai-jia, executive director of the Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers' Association, which represents more than 4,000 local companies. Listing in Hong Kong allows companies to avoid the Taiwan-imposed capital restriction of 40 percent on China-bound investments, he says.
As a regional finance hub, Hong Kong is also a top destination for Taiwanese capital. "Hong Kong is more than a capital-raising market since its service-oriented and highly internationalized economy facilitates linking Asian countries to Chinese markets," says Jason Feng, deputy secretary-general of Taiwan's Chinese National Federation of Industries. He believes that many Taiwanese businesses also meet their international buyers, recruit executive talent and exchange technologies in Hong Kong, where time and transportation costs to China are far cheaper than those from Taiwan due to the absence of direct cross-strait links.
Hong Kong has also tapped into the industrial exhibition market, holding annual electronics fairs with some 2,000 exhibitors from 29 countries, including Taiwan, and 57,000 international buyers last year. "A golden, triangular relationship has taken shape between Taiwan, China and Hong Kong, with each having an economic emphasis on high-tech, manufacturing and marketing respectively," says Luo.
Driven by China fever, Taiwan-Hong Kong trade ties have never been closer, with a record-high balance of US$39.174 billion in 2006 making Taiwan Hong Kong's fourth largest trade partner, according to statistics from Taiwan's Ministry of Finance.
Next to China, Hong Kong is the second largest destination for Taiwanese exports, and together they take up more than 40 percent of the country's exports.
Hong Kong is also the premier destination for Taiwanese tourists, who made 2.96 million visits to there last year, according to Taiwan's National Immigration Agency, and have become the second largest in-bound tourist group after the mainlanders. "Taiwanese can find no better tourist attraction in Asia than Hong Kong," said Yao Ta-kuang, chairman of the Taipei Association of Travel Agents.
Tourism is an important pillar of Hong Kong's economic growth, which has been greatly boosted by Chinese tourists in recent years. In response to the loosening of visa restrictions, 148 million PRC nationals registered to visit the city in 2004. Although only 12 million have made the trip each year since, they contributed US$7.4 billion to the economy in 2005 alone, according to Hong Kong Tourism Board.
These figures have attracted Taiwanese interest in Chinese tourists, and pressured the government to consider allowing 1,000 PRC tourists onto the island per day. If these restrictions are lifted, Taiwan's Council for Economic Planning and Development estimates that Chinese tourists may spend as much as US$600 million annually. "By then, Taiwan may be competing with Hong Kong for Chinese travelers, but won't really pose a threat since only 360,000 people per year will be allowed to visit," says Roget Hsu, secretary-general of the Travel Agent Association of Taiwan. "Chinese tourists have shown great interest in Taiwan," said Kao. "But Taiwan and Hong Kong can both compete and cooperate as most Taiwan-bound Chinese tourists will have to transit through Hong Kong anyway."
Comfort and Freedom
While Hong Kong's economy is doing well alongside China's, the relationship is never risk-free. "Any flip-flop of Chinese policy or any economic fluctuation will negatively impact Hong Kong's economy, which depends highly on panicky foreign capital," said Jason Feng. And, while the motherland will not sabotage the SAR's economy, the same cannot be said of its actions toward democracy. "China's economic control over Hong Kong will loosen in the future, but at the same time its political control will tighten," MAC's Tsai says. Although he is cautious, Tsai believes that real democracy will ensue, in Hong Kong and elsewhere in China, when people are economically independent, just as it did in Taiwan.
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Joyce Huang is a freelance reporter based in Taipei.
Copyright (c) 2007 by Joyce Huang