China steps in to restore stability in HK

(The Straits Times, 17 September 2003)

HONG KONG - China has intervened, explicitly and effectively, in the running of Hong Kong - and people here seem to welcome rather than resent it.

Their bottom line is that Chinese intervention, especially measures to prop up the floundering economy, is preferred to a failing administration.

Underlying this sentiment is a growing perception that the Tung Chee Hwa administration may no longer be able to govern Hong Kong effectively after its most serious political crisis precipitated by the massive street protests in July.

The scale of the intervention is unprecedented. First, Beijing formed a task force, which it called a Central Leading Group (CLG) on Hong Kong, to take charge.

It is headed by Vice-President Zeng Qinghong, whose more important party job is Politburo Standing Committee member and who is No. 5 in the pecking order.

Within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), CLGs are much like the Cabinet committees in the parliamentary system and given wide powers to decide on key policy areas, be it national security, foreign affairs or Taiwan relations.

Forming a CLG on Hong Kong means that the Special Administrative Region (SAR) has become a major problem for Beijing and requires attention at the highest level.

This is also the first time in 50 years that a Politburo Standing Committee member assumes day-to-day supervision of Hong Kong.

Membership in this CLG includes heads from the party's various functional departments, all relevant ministries and representatives from the judiciary and military. A source describes the team as a 'mini-Cabinet'.

Although the two traditional conduits, the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office of the State Council, and the Liaison Office of the Central Government in Hong Kong, are still there, their significance has paled substantially as a result.

After forming the CLG, Beijing began to set priorities, with the focus on restoring Hong Kong's political and social stability through reviving the ailing economy, which it still regards as the root of the mass protests, whatever others say.

It then reversed, none too subtly, the Tung government's decision to restart the legislative process for the controversial national security law that had first sparked the July protests.

Beijing did this, at a cost to the much-vaunted 'one country, two systems' principle, so Hong Kong could stay focused on reviving the economy.

Knowing well that Mr Tung no longer commands respect, Chinese leaders summoned pro-Beijing political and economic leaders to the capital and asked them to help shore him up.

Mr Zeng and State Councillor Tang Jiaxuan told the visitors that it was their common political duty to support Mr Tung - not for him as a person but for the 'one country, two systems' model, and by extension, national unification.

By inviting some and excluding others, Beijing, in effect, embroiled itself deeply in Hong Kong's politics as well.

The Bar Association, which stood openly against the proposed law and gained much public respect as a staunch defender of freedom and human rights, was excluded - conspicuously.

The Liberal Party, which helped to avert a possible bloody confrontation by withdrawing support for the Bill at the last minute, was also slighted. Its request to visit Beijing to explain its decision was flatly rejected.

Instead, Beijing accorded the highest honour, a meeting with Mr Zeng, to the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Progressive Alliance, the most ardent supporters of the controversial Bill.

Observers say this is an attempt to drum up public support for the two parties, much dented because of their initial support of the Bill.

With district council elections coming up this November and legislative council elections next September, they are at high risk of losing votes.

Seen from this perspective, Mr Zeng's decision to meet them was yet another intervention, aimed at influencing voting in Hong Kong.

Perhaps the most significant, and most welcome, intervention was the flurry of preferential policies for Hong Kong announced in the wake of the demonstrations.

Hong Kong's democrats see these moves as Beijing setting a bad precedent, if not altogether a violation of the Basic Law, the territory's mini-Constitution.

To Beijing, such criticism is trivial, compared to the nightmare of a collapsing or collapsed Hong Kong.

The CCP knows well that it had failed with Shanghai when it took over the city in 1949, and with Tibet in the so-called 'peaceful liberation' in 1951. It is not going to fail a third time with Hong Kong.

As former premier Zhu Rongji put it emphatically, moments before he stepped down last year, if Hong Kong founders, 'the CCP will become the sinner of the whole Chinese nation'.

Thus far, thanks to Beijing's determination and its iron fist, there are signs that political and social stability is now returning to the SAR.