As Hong Kong begins to get to grips with the Xinhua announcement last Friday that the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (SCNPC) will give an interpretation of the meaning of provisions of the Basic Law (BL) relevant to constitutional reform, this eNewsletter provides a quick analysis of Hong Kong's official utterances and raises questions to ponder [see also eNewsletter of 26/3/04].

A member of the Committee for the Basic Law (CBL) said the interpretation will "not be tyrannical", it will be "mild" and therefore "acceptable".

1. Post-1/7/03 promise: The Chief Executive (CE) said on 31/7 that the HKSAR Government had begun a constitutional review and that there would be public consultations in 2004. It would provide a timetable for consultation before the end of 2003.

2. Post-7/1/04 reality: No timetable was given but on 7/1/04, the CE announced that he set up a Task Force (TF) on constitutional reform headed by the Chief Secretary (CS). The TF's job was to examine the "relevant principles and legislative process" related to reform, consult Beijing and encourage Hong Kong people to express views. "Principles" relate to "one country". It began meeting various groups in Hong Kong as part of the consultation and set-up a website to collect views [see www.cab-review.gov.hk]

3. Beijing sojourn: On 9-10/2/04, the TF visited Beijing and was told that it was important to focus on the "principles" first i.e. principles before process. Hong Kong lawyers had already began to look at "process" by examining the wording of the provisions of the BL.

4. Patriot missives: On 20/2/04, Beijing fired its first missives that Hong Kong could only be governed by "patriots". A number of Hong Kong politicians were labelled by various mouthpieces as "unpatriotic". That episode began to die down around first week of March.

5. Interpretation surprise: On 26/3/04, the interpretation announcement was made. The SCNPC said it would consult the Committee for the Basic Law (CBL) before making a decision by 2-6/4/04. Many commentators speculated that the rush had to do with the messy Taiwan election.

The CE and CS both gave press statements on the interpretation, as did CBL member from Hong Kong, Ng Hon-man. They should be read carefully for clues:

(a) The HKSAR Government " was duely notified" of the interpretation decision on the day the announcement was made in Beijing.

(b) The interpretation is on Article 7 of Annex I and Article 3 of Annex II of the BL, which relates to the legislative process of when/how electoral reform for the CE and LegCo elections could take place. In relation to the legislative process - "the community does have a wide range of opinions".

(c) Interpretation can "remove doubts", "minimize disputes", "provide a better foundation for subsequent discussion" on constitutional development, and "eliminate court challenges".

(e) The TK is "compiling" its report and work is at "an advance stage". When it is done, it will be passed to the "Central Authorities" [party and government] through the Hong Kong & Macao Affairs Office as soon as possible.

(f) The "next stage" for the TK is to deal with "the issues of principles", which are "more divergent" than those on legislative process and the TK needs more time to consolidate the views.

(a) Why is the SCNPC taking the initiative? According to Article 158 of the BL, the SCNPC has the power. "This explains the legal basis" of the initiative.

(b) "There are different understandings" of the Annexes I & II provisions among Hong Kong people. "We could not afford to ... face ... uncertainty resulting from such litigations".

After the second and last meeting of the CBL with the SCNPC, Ng said on 28/3/04 that the interpretation will be "mild" and "acceptable". It appears from what he said we can expect the interpretation to include:

1. When did the CE and CS know respectively about the interpretation decision - on the day it was made or earlier?

4. On process, the CS said on 24/3/04 that the differences in views in Hong Kong was "relatively small" but why has it now become "wide"? However, the differences on principles are supposedly even wider still.

5. In 1999, the HKSAR Government requested the SCNPC to interpret provisions in the BL that relates to residency because the local courts made a decision it could not accept. At the time, it was a surprise that the government could initiate an interpretation and it caused much controversy. Did the HKSAR officials envisage the SCNPC to initiate an interpretation?

7. The TK had not finished its "report" on 26/3 but it has to meeting the SCNPC in Shenzhen on 30/3, yet the SCNPC already has a "draft" interpretation (e-Newsletter 26/3/04). Was the SCNPC not planning to take into account the TF's work initially?