Keri Phillips: Hello, this is Rear Vision with Keri Phillips. Today, Hong Kong and the fight for democracy in a communist state.
Journalist [archival]: Talks aimed at ending the rallies that have paralysed Hong Kong's streets have concluded, with neither the government nor protest leaders giving in.
Journalist [archival]: Thousands of people jammed the streets of Hong Kong to watch the first formal discussions between student protest leaders and government officials. The two-hour talks were beamed live onto screens set up in the main protest sites. Parts of the city remain barricaded as the protest enters its fourth week.
Keri Phillips: For nearly a month, thousands of demonstrators have paralysed parts of the territory, demanding that the Chinese government reverse its decision to allow only its hand-picked candidates to run for election as Hong Kong's top official in 2017. Today Rear Vision looks at the background to this massive public protest.
Hong Kong was under British rule for over 150 years. As the end of Britain's lease over the crown colony came into view in the late 1970s, the governments of Margaret Thatcher and Deng Xiaoping reached a formal agreement to hand back the territory to China in 1997.
The Sino-British Joint Declaration proposed a principle of 'one country, two systems' which would allow the people of Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy, enshrining for the next 50 years the same legal, social and economic systems that existed under the British. The document also promised the people of Hong Kong something which they had never enjoyed as a British colony; universal suffrage.
Professor Steve Tsang, who grew up in Hong Kong, is a senior fellow of the China Policy Institute at the University of Nottingham. I spoke to him by Skype.
Steve Tsang: Bear in mind that we are talking about the early 1980s when the negotiations started, China was in the very early stage of the post-Mao period. It was still essentially the old-fashioned Marxist Leninist Mao Zedong political system. So for the British parliament to agree to hand over several million British subjects to a communist state, there would have to be some kind of arrangements that would be tolerable to the British Parliament, otherwise it would be rather difficult to sell. And that's why in the Sino-British Joint Declaration there were clear indications that Hong Kong would move towards some kind of changes. But at the same time there was also a clear need that the Sino-British agreement would have to be acceptable to Beijing, therefore there could not have been clear spelling out specifically what democratic changes need to be introduced in Hong Kong before the actual handover.
So there was a degree of calculated ambiguity being built into the agreement, with the British side believing that they would be able to develop Hong Kong much further in the direction of democratic changes before the handover in 1997, with the Chinese never really agreeing to something like that, though they accepted some changes might be necessary. And once that agreement was being signed and ratified, the British side in Hong Kong started a process of political reform, so there was a green paper, a consultation paper for the development of representative government in Hong Kong. When that was being issued, the Chinese government made it very clear that they would not accept that. They would then say that the future political arrangement in Hong Kong must depend on what the Chinese decide the Basic Law of Hong Kong after 1997 would be like. And therefore whatever changes that the British were to introduce will have to dovetail what the Chinese government would plan in the Basic Law that was still not yet being drafted at the time.
Keri Phillips: Under British rule, executive power was concentrated in the hands of the governor, appointed by Westminster. A Legislative Council had been set up during the 19th century but its members were effectively chosen by the British government. But during Hong Kong's final years as a British colony, the Legislative Council became an unusual hybrid, with representatives for some seats elected directly, but others—called functional constituency seats—elected by industry and professional elites.
Steve Tsang: Those functional constituencies would include, for example, the bankers association, for which only the senior bankers, the owners of the bank, would have a vote. But your ordinary workers in the bank would not have a vote. And that really is in terms of making sure that people that you almost could approve of would be part of that process and therefore not have free open elections.
A fully elected Legislative Council was not something that Beijing would tolerate. They would not allow the British until 1997 to have more than half of the legislative council being directly elected, as a result of which you cannot have any political party in Hong Kong that could command a majority in the Legislative Council, and therefore lay claims to the right to form a government along the lines of a Westminster model of democracy.
Keri Phillips: What's known as Hong Kong Basic Law was drafted during the years leading to the return of Hong Kong to China. Built on the Sino-British Joint Declaration, it guaranteed the continuation of the capitalist system and the right of the people of Hong Kong to such things as free speech and freedom of association. Although no date was set, it also guaranteed that the selection of the Chief Executive (who essentially replaced the British governor) would ultimately be by means of universal suffrage. Dr Sow Keat Tok is a China expert in the Asia Institute at the University of Melbourne.
Sow Keat Tok: China promised Hong Kong in the Basic Law drafting the ultimate aim for the 'one country, two systems' that Hong Kong is put under, the ultimate aim is universal suffrage. So democratisation is actually built into the promise of 'one country, two systems'. It was pretty much the British colonial government that actually built up that democratisation vision. It was China which actually wrote in that final and eventual actualisation of democracy in Hong Kong.
Keri Phillips: There's a distinction to be made, isn't there, in the sense that although everybody might have the opportunity to vote, which is what universal suffrage means, the choice of candidates wouldn't be open in the same way as it would be, say, in Australia.
Sow Keat Tok: Yes, and…well, at that point of time I think China wasn't really thinking of that. The most recent interpretation on how this universal suffrage should be is very much a created interpretation of the Basic Law. I think at that point in time it was just…I like to think that the Chinese government is just saying that eventually some form of reform has to be carried out within China as well as in Hong Kong, and the aim is universal suffrage, just without calling it democracy, okay, they call ituniversal suffrage. But in what form universal suffrage would take, how voting should be carried out, I think there was no consensus whatsoever.
Keri Phillips: It didn't take long for Hong Kong's pro-democracy activists to take to the streets, as the ABC's Peter Cave reported on Hong Kong's first day as a Special Administrative Region,or SAR, of the People's Republic of China.
Peter Cave [archival]: Day one of Hong Kong's new future and the tolerance of Hong Kong's new rulers is being tested with a mass rally for democracy. The march stretches at least 10 city blocks and the end is still not in sight. They've gathered here in front of the main government administration centre, supporting a brand-new People's Republic crest under thousands of red banners, demanding an end to one-party dictatorship and demanding that China build not just a democratic Hong Kong but a democratic China as well.
Keri Phillips: New pro-democracy political parties and groups had emerged in Hong Kong in the 1980s and '90s but the voting system in the Legislative Council meant that no one party could ever gain control. Professor Joseph Cheng, a political scientist at the City University of Hong Kong, has been a pro-democracy activist for more than 30 years and is the convenor of the Alliance for True Democracy, the umbrella group for the current Occupy Central campaign.
Joseph Cheng: Well, during the first administration, CH Tung, the first Chief Executive, did not really care to talk to the pro-democracy groups and their legislators in the legislature, in contrast to the practice of the last governor, Chris Patten. Chris Patten's idea was to maintain a delicate balance. He would like to have the support of the pro-democracy groups on issues like social welfare, human rights and so on, as well as democracy, rule of law et cetera.
And of course he would seek the support of the pro-establishment groups, the business groups, in normal policies concerning economic development and financial centres and so on. So he tried to maintain a dialogue with all political groups, maintaining a balance.
The Basic Law however already provides a safe majority in support of the government because of the unfairness, the lack of complete democracy of the electoral system, so much so that there is a safe majority in support of the establishment.
To put this into perspective, the pro-democracy groups secured 55% of the votes in the last legislature elections in 2012, but these groups only enjoyed 27 seats out of 70 in the existing legislature. So despite the fact that the pro-democracy groups secured a majority of votes in all elections held, ranging a share of 55% to 60% of the vote, their seats have always been in the minority.
Keri Phillips: This is Rear Vision with Keri Phillips on RN. Don't forget you can organise a regular podcast of the show through iTunes, and also hear the program on your mobile by downloading the ABC app.
Today we're hearing about the pro-democracy demonstrations that have paralysed much of Hong Kong over the last month, the so-called 'umbrella movement'. Sow Keat Tok says that Hong Kong became known as the protest capital of the world, especially after China regained sovereignty in 1997.
Sow Keat Tok: Hong Kong is actually dubbed by the New York Times as the demonstration capital of the world. In fact until about early 2000s you're looking at an average of five demonstrations in Hong Kong every day. So it's something that is very common, it's a common phenomena in Hong Kong.
Sarah Mak: Hong Kong has had a long history of social movements, but you're right in that really it's after the 1997 period in which we do see it becoming more of a regular occurrence.
Keri Phillips: Sarah Mak is Visiting Assistant Professor of Government and Asian Studies at Bowdoin College. I spoke to her by Skype.
Sarah Mak: So I think one of the key moments is in 2003 when on the anniversary of the establishment of the SAR in Hong Kong we had 500,000 people take to the streets in a planned demonstration where they marched from Causeway Bay in Hong Kong all the way to Central. Now, why there were so many people in the streets that particular year, well, it had to do with a number of things. This was immediately after the outbreak of SARS, and a lot of people were quite unhappy with how the Hong Kong government initially handled the SARS outbreak.
But more importantly at the time was…the reason why there were so many people on the streets was because the government was trying to push forth a new piece of legislation called Article 23, and this new piece of legislation was essentially an anti-sedition act, in many ways similar to I guess the Patriot Act in the US. But for many people there was a lot of unease around this and they felt that their civil liberties were really under threat essentially. So that was one of the key moments, and it was at that time the biggest demonstration that many people had seen in Hong Kong.
Following that there has since been a tradition where every July 1, on the anniversary of the establishment of Hong Kong SAR, there have been protests and demonstrations on the streets, such that now the demonstrations, especially in the past few years, have been growing in number, and they include interest groups that really span the political spectrum. So you have pro-democracy advocates, you have villagers who are protesting development plans in their village. You also have animal rights activists, minority group activists. So it has come to the point where these July 1 marches are really in many ways a hodgepodge of different issues, but the one thing that unites everything seems to be the people's discontent with how the government is handling these issues.
Another sort of key moment in terms of social movements and demonstrations in Hong Kong would be something that happened a few years ago actually in 2012 where the government was trying to introduce a change in the education curriculum in which all schools would have to teach what was known as a patriotic education class, something to that effect. And this actually lead to a group of high school students who formed the group Scholarism to really come together, and they actually successfully managed to have that national education plan shelved. And I should also note that one of the key members of that group Scholarism is Joshua Wong who has been very active in the protests that we see today in Hong Kong.
Keri Phillips: So despite a voting system that gives Beijing control through both its appointed Chief Executive and a gerrymandered Legislative Council, political activism of the most direct kind—street protest—has allowed a kind of political voice to the people of Hong Kong. Given this, I wondered how much change China had been able to impose on the former British colony over the past 17 years.
Sarah Mak: Well, certainly there is that worry amongst Hong Kongers that it will become just another city in China. I think there has been a concerted effort amongst people in Hong Kong to hold on to cultural aspects or linguistic aspects. So, for instance, in Hong Kong the majority of the people speak Cantonese, and that is something that many Hong Kong people are quite proud of, this dialect of Chinese.
There are also debates, for instance, amongst preservationists who really have been struggling to fight against the Hong Kong government's plans for urban renewal. But whether or not it has actually changed or appears different, I would say it's not really the case but certainly there is the fear of that becoming the case.
Sow Keat Tok: On the surface it seems like Hong Kong has changed very little. I think just a couple of weeks ago a commentator wrote that in the years that he has lived in Hong Kong he only has observed the Chinese flag once, just once. China is actually imposing very little overt presence. But that said, over the years you are seeing very importantly an increasing number of mainlanders moving to Hong Kong, either as day tourists or actually move their residency over in Hong Kong to invest in properties and take up residency in Hong Kong.
So you can imagine that the changes, the enormous social impact and pressures that this kind of flow of population actually causes Hong Kong society. And indeed, when I visited Hong Kong in April this year just before the whole thing became really bad, the feedback I received was that it's not so much a democratic demand, it was very much Hong Kongers felt that their livelihood has been affected by the mainland Chinese coming in, and they feel that things have changed a lot. The prices of houses has gone up so much, the cost of living has gone up so much, and all the society has become less and less cultured because of the 'uncouth' mainlanders coming into Hong Kong, things like that. So it is a social response more than anything else.
And there's one very interesting thing going on in the recent years after 2003 was that there was an increasing emphasis on Chinese language education. Under the British rule, education in Hong Kong has always been primarily English-based education, but over time you are seeing a lot of conversion of schools in Hong Kong from using English as a medium of teaching to Chinese as a medium of teaching.
You are also seeing that increasingly China is drumming up nationalist sentiments within Hong Kong, the obvious one being sending the Chinese astronauts to Hong Kong to visit, Chinese gold medallists, Olympic gold medallists to Hong Kong to visit, things like playing the national anthem on local radio, on Hong Kong radio, implementing flag raising ceremonies, more national education in the curriculum and things like that. So these are changing the social fabric in Hong Kong slowly but surely.
Politically Beijing has intervened in Hong Kong only through what we call the law interpretation. There is no obvious intervention in Hong Kong, even though tension was high back in 2003, for example. What China did was to do what the Basic Law stipulates, so they have a Basic Law interpretation committee sitting in Beijing, and they will interpret the Basic Law and they will issue decrees and say that, okay, based on our interpretation of Basic Law this is what we are going to do for Hong Kong.
So it was not so much a political intervention but a legal intervention. Or you may want to put it; a political intervention wrapped up in a legal facade. All the while Beijing has been seen as trying to keep it in that manner rather than seeing direct involvement in Hong Kong. A lot of the changes have been done under the table through the Chief Executive. So every year the Chief Executive will have to report to Beijing, and then Beijing in the discussion will give him directions and instructions of how they like Hong Kong's development or what kind of policy should be taking precedence over the others. But there was very, very little obvious intervention whatsoever.
Journalist [archival]: Police in Hong Kong have warned a riot is on the verge of breaking out at one of the main sites where pro-democracy supporters have camped out for nearly a month.
Journalist [archival]: The number of clashes between Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters and police in the neighbourhood of Mong Kok have increased in recent days. A police spokesman accused some demonstrators of deliberately charging through police lines, and warned the situation was on the verge of turning into a riot. Protesters say they will defy court orders to leave the area.
Keri Phillips: You're listening to Rear Vision with Keri Phillips on RN, also available by podcast and on your mobile. Today Rear Vision looks at the background to the massive street protests in Hong Kong that have paralysed parts of the city for the past four weeks. I asked Joseph Cheng, one of the organisers of the Occupy Central campaign, to explain what sparked the protests.
Joseph Cheng: In 2007 the Chinese authorities promised Hong Kong people that we may elect our Chief Executive by universal suffrage in 2017, and all seats of the legislature by universal suffrage in 2020. However, by the end of August this year the standing committee of the National People's Congress announced a decision. The decision sets the framework for the election of the Chief Executive in 2017. However, this framework leaves no room for a democratic electoral system. According to this framework the pro-Beijing elites will elect a nomination committee and capture a majority in this nomination committee.
This absolute majority in the nomination committee will then control the entire list of candidates for the Chief Executive election. All the time the Chinese authorities use the excuse of a national security considerations to rationalise, to justify a political screening process to ensure that the candidates are truly patriotic, that they love Hong Kong, love China and so on. And when the pro-democracy groups ask what are the criteria, then the answer is the nomination committee will decide. Hence Hong Kong people feel that there is no meaningful choice for the people, there is no genuine competition in the election. And this decision triggered the Occupy Central campaign.
Steve Tsang: The Chinese Communist party generally speaking does not have any problem with direct elections, provided that the electoral outcome is known beforehand and is preapproved by the Communist Party beforehand, then you can have free direct elections without any difficulties. And that is exactly what the Chinese National People's Congress standing committee agreed to allow Hong Kong to have in August for the 2017 elections of the Chief Executive of Hong Kong.
Keri Phillips: Last week, in an extraordinary debate broadcast live on television, student leaders pressed senior government representatives from the territory for a timetable for democratic reform. In the end, neither side gave any ground but the event was in itself astonishing, given the broader political context, for Hong Kong's persistent agitation for democracy has implications for Beijing, both inside China and in its relationship with Taiwan.
Joseph Cheng: We have been telling the Chinese authorities that it is not difficult at all to implement democracy in Hong Kong. Hong Kong people are moderate, they are pragmatic, they don't want to confront Beijing, they fully accept Chinese sovereignty over Hong Kong. All they want is to be left alone to enjoy a high degree of autonomy. And we all understand that our economy is highly dependent on that of mainland China, our water comes from mainland China, and certainly we have no intention to make trouble with Beijing. And any chief executive, even a Chief Executive from the pro-democracy camp, must maintain a good relationship with Beijing, otherwise the Chief Executive simply cannot survive. People will not support him or her.
Then the big question of Taiwan. We have also been persuading the Chinese authorities this way and we say that Taiwan people are extremely concerned with the issue of today's Hong Kong, tomorrow's Taiwan. That is to say Hong Kong loses its demonstration effect on Taiwan and if Hong Kong people feel cheated by the Chinese authorities, how can Taiwan people have confidence in potential negotiations with Beijing. And Beijing's efforts in attracting Taiwan, in cultivating good relations with Taiwan, in cultivating the confidence of Taiwan people in Beijing will be much, much damaged.
In regard to the demonstration’s effect in China, certainly the Chinese authorities are very concerned, but I think people all over the world hope to see democratic reforms in China, and it will be best for the Chinese leadership when they enjoy a high level of trust from the people, when China's economy is doing very well, to initiate political reforms and not to wait until political reforms are forced upon authorities by the grievances of the people. But apparently these arguments do not go well with a Marxist Leninist regime which intends to maintain its monopoly of political power at this stage.
Keri Phillips: Professor Joseph Cheng, the convenor of the Alliance for True Democracy, the umbrella group for Hong Kong's Occupy Central campaign. You also heard Professor Steve Tsang from the China Policy Institute at the University of Nottingham, Sarah Mak, a Visiting Assistant Professor of Government and Asian Studies at Bowdoin College, and Dr Sow Keat Tok from the Asia Institute at the University of Melbourne.
Judy Rapley is the sound engineer for Rear Vision today. Bye from Keri Phillips.
Hong Kong, officially known as Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, was under British rule for over one hundred and fifty years. The expiry of Britain’s sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997 led first to negotiations and then a formal agreement for its transfer to China.
The Sino-British Joint Declaration proposed a principle of ‘one country, two systems’ which would allow the people of Hong Kong to continue to enjoy, for the next fifty years, the legal, social and economic systems as well as the personal freedoms that existed before the hand-over to China.
The document also promised the people of Hong Kong something which they never had – universal suffrage – leading subsequently to regular demonstrations demanding greater political freedom from Beijing. The ‘umbrella movement’ is the latest and most prolonged.
- Steve Tsang
- Sow Keat Tok
- Joseph Cheng
- Sarah Mak
- Keri Phillips, presenter
- Keri Phillips, producer