It was announced this afternoon that China's legislature will give an interpretation of parts of the Basic Law (BL) that relates to constitutional development in Hong Kong.

Is Beijing trying to stump further discussion in Hong Kong by taking such an aggressive step? What has made Beijing decide to do so?

1. Announcement: The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (SCNPC) will give an interpretation of Article 7 of Annex I and Article 3 of Annex II of the Basic Law - Hong Kong's post-97 constituition - at its next meeting from April 2 to April 6. The members of the SCNPC will then "deliberate the draft of interpretations". The draft will first be presented to the Committee of the Basic Law (CBL) for consultation. See http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-03/content_1386939.htm

N.B. Annex I Article 7 deals with what "the terms subsequent to the year 2007" means in terms of electing the chief executive; and Annex II Article 3 refers to the method for the formation of LegCo subsequent to 2007.

2. Key aspects: (a) There is a draft of the interpretations already; (b) it will be decided next week; and (c) the SCNPC will consult the CBL.

3. Who made the decision?: The Xinhua released said that the decision was made at a meeting of the SCNPC chairman and vice-chairmen today. The chairman is Wu Bangguo, also the 2nd ranked member of the Politburo. There are 15 vice-chairmen.

5. Why really?: Xinhua also released an article by Wang Zhenmin, a law professor, at the same time entitled: "The Necessary Action for Governing Hong Kong by Law". Wang noted the following reasons to support the decision:

(i) There are some different understanding on various provisions and views from Hong Kong "not compliant" to the principle of "one country";

6. What is the CBL?: The CBL is a special body set up by Beijing with membership from Hong Kong and the Mainland to advise the SCNPC in interpretating the BL.

1. What about the Task Force?: On 7/1/04, the HKSAR Government set-up the Task Force on Constitutional Development to gather views from Hong Kong and to consult Beijing. The TK has yet to finish its work.

2. What about the Think Tank?: On 31/12/03, the Hong Kong Macau Affairs Institute was set-up under the State Council (China's cabinet) to look into Hong Kong affairs. Its work has hardly begun in Hong Kong [see eNewsletter 19/3/04].

3. Why the rush?: By announcing the interpretation today and to give an interpretation within 10 days, this means the SCNPC is really rushing it. It will be "consulting" the CBL, presumably by showing them the prepared "draft" very soon.

4. What is in the draft?: There is a "draft" of the interpretation but no one has seen it and no one will see it apart from the few members of the CBL before the interpretation is delivered.

5. Why choose the the two articles?: They deal with aspects of reform in 2007. It appears the interpretation may well say change to the BL is only possible starting in the term after 2007 so that any real reform can only take place in 2011/2012 for the chief executive/LegCo elections respectively.

1. Deafening silence?: The HKSAR Government as of 10.45 pm local time has issue NO statement of any sort on the website although chief executive Tung did hold a short press conference. Why was there no major statement put out?

2. Rule of Law impact: In 1999, the HKSAR Government asked the SCNPC to interpret the BL on residency rights. The interpretation given was more political than legal, which was unsurprising given the mainland's own legal tradition. Hong Kong's concern was the politicisation of the law.

3. Politicisation of law and legal means: The debate over constitutional development is a political issue. In using the law to deal with political issues is to weaker the rule of law as Hong Kong understands the rule of law.

4. Losing the debate: Is it possible that Beijing decided to take this move now in order to (a) capitalize on the messy outcome of Taiwan's presidential election?; (b) stop the debate in Hong Kong on reform sooner rather than later?; and/or (c) ensure reform does not become the most important LegCo election issue?

5. Problem for Beijing: If what Beijing is saying is that there can be no change to the electoral arrangement in 2007/2008, it still has to respond to whether reform can happen in 2011/2012. Also, there may well be surprising consequences to this aggressive move at this time prior to the LegCo election.