Those chants may soon grow louder. This week China’s National People’s Congress is expected to announce a ruling that could be a serious blow to the territory’s hopes of picking its own leaders. According to the Basic Law, which Britain and China negotiated prior to the island’s return to the mainland in 1997, Hong Kongers could be going to the polls to select their chief executive in direct elections as soon as 2007. Political analysts now expect the NPC’s legal ruling to push back the timing for direct elections beyond 2007 with vague language about the territory’s need for slower, evolutionary political change.
If that is the rationale Beijing offers, few people in Hong Kong are likely to buy it. A more plausible explanation is China’s lack of faith in their self-appointed chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa; he’s so despised that any successor is likely to capitalize on anti-mainland resentment. The timing doesn’t help either: Beijing already has one eye on 2008, when it is scheduled to host the Olympics, and when Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian will be wrapping up his second term. If Chen is to make any dramatic moves toward Taiwanese independence, that would be the time; the last thing authorities want in the run-up to the Games is more trouble on its periphery. Unable to do much about Taipei, mainland leaders may want to underscore their control over Hong Kong. Says labor leader and legislator Lee Cheuk-yan, “The message from Beijing in interpreting this law is to show Hong Kong people who is the boss.”
The move may backfire. Hong Kongers are now far more politically active and engaged; they track Beijing’s political edicts about as closely as they watch markets. According to a survey conducted by the independent Hong Kong think tank Civic Exchange, only 2 percent of citizens said they participated in political rallies two years ago; now the number tops 25 percent. Voter turnout in the November 2003 district council elections rose nearly 10 percent from the previous polls in 1999, and new-voter registration drives are likely to bring even more people out for the Legislative Council elections in September. Pro-democracy groups have also seen a big jump in their bottom lines. Jackie Fung of the Civil Human Rights Front, a coalition of NGOs that organized last year’s July march, says their efforts to collect donations amounted to next to nothing. Last week’s evening rally raised more than $64,000.
Another heavy-handed response from Beijing may well embolden the protest movement. China can’t afford to look too far ahead; this year alone will see two major anniversaries that could inspire unrest–June 4 will mark the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre and July 1 is the first anniversary of Hong Kong’s 500,000-person march. With Hong Kongers increasingly organized and fired up, time may not be on Beijing’s side.
