Due to a lack of transparency, it is often difficult to tell whether decisions are made in Hong Kong or Beijing. For example, there was the case of the newspaper proprietor Sally Aw, whom the Independent Commission Against Corruption charged as a co-conspirator in a fraud case. The Justice Department decided to drop charges against her. Aw was a member of China’s top advisory body at the time.
Outright interference can also be documented. In 2000, the pro-independence candidate Chen Shui-bian won the Taiwan presidential election. The repercussions were felt in Hong Kong; high Chinese officials warned Hong Kong journalists not to report pro-independence news, saying it was the media’s duty to “defend the sovereignty and integrity of the country,” and warned Hong Kong business people not to deal with pro-independence Taiwanese. The Hong Kong government showed no will to resist such pressure.
Three years later, the impending passage of a law to criminalize subversive behavior brought well over half a million people onto the streets. Dissatisfaction with both Beijing and the Hong Kong authorities was palpable and brought with it cries for full democracy in the new elections, scheduled for 2007-2008. In the aftermath, China decided to crack down.
The following April, the standing committee of China’s national legislature took action. It ruled out full democracy in 2007 and 2008 and issued an interpretation of the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s Beijing-enacted mini-Constitution, saying that Hong Kong could not decide on its own when to elect the entire legislature through universal suffrage. Currently, only half the legislators are directly elected; the others are chosen through a more limited franchise. That interpretation effectively reneged on a promise that Hong Kong could decide when to democratically elect the whole legislature.
There has also been evidence of interference by local Chinese authorities, particularly from neighboring Guangdong province, in Hong Kong affairs. In one case in 2000, Guangdong police were accused of escorting a bribery suspect back to his home in Hong Kong, which they allegedly searched, seizing documents and the contents of a safe-deposit box. The Hong Kong government looked into the complaint but concluded that there was insufficient evidence to prove that Hong Kong law had been breached. In an incident in 2004, seven mainlanders, including two public security officers, were arrested on Mount Davis where they were apparently on a stakeout. One of them had a pair of handcuffs. However, Guangdong insisted the men were in Hong Kong for sightseeing and shopping. Hong Kong sent them home.
When legislators question such behavior, the Hong Kong government is often forced to defend the mainland’s actions. This is no doubt because the chief executive and his principal officials are all appointed by Beijing and not elected in Hong Kong. Now that Beijing has made clear that it—not Hong Kong—will decide when the city will enjoy full democracy, the outlook is that this will not happen in the foreseeable future.
The trend is toward greater interference by Beijing in the running of the city. Earlier this month, at a forum in the Great Hall of the People to mark the 10th anniversary of the implementation of the Basic Law, Wu Bangguo, the country’s second-ranking leader, reminded Hong Kong that its autonomy “is not intrinsic” but is “granted by the central government.” In the days before Chief Executive Donald Tsang unveiled the new cabinet to take office July 1, the press was rife with rumors as to which candidates had been hand-picked by Beijing.
While implementation of the one-country, two-systems formula has been a success economically, in political terms it has fallen short. After all, how can one argue that it is one country, two systems with “Hong Kong people administering Hong Kong” when the leaders of the mainland system pick the leaders of the Hong Kong system?
