The Straits Times: Hong Kong's role - political or economic?

By Ching Cheong

HONG KONG - China is prepared to prop up Hong Kong as an international financial centre but is adamant that it shall never become a political one.

This is the message Beijing has been spelling out to visitors from Hong Kong who gave the central government their views on what precipitated the massive street protests in the territory in July.

According to sources, even as recently as last week, Chinese Vice-President Zeng Qinghong, the top party man in direct charge of Hong Kong, found it necessary to remind Mr Tung Chee Hwa where Beijing drew the line.

He told the Hong Kong Chief Executive at a meeting in Shenzhen that more preferential policies were on the way to help lift the territory from its worst economic woes in decades. But watch trends and developments that would result in Hong Kong drifting towards being a 'political city', Mr Zeng warned.

He used the euphemistic term 'political city' instead of 'subversive base', which was what Beijing had called Hong Kong in the aftermath of the Tiananmen incident in 1989 when a million people took to the streets to demand Premier Li Peng's ouster for his role in the brutal suppression of pro-democracy demonstrators.

He knew that most Hong Kong people, even die-hard supporters of the Chinese Communist Party, resented the subversive tag.

Mr Zeng and those of his colleagues responsible for Hong Kong have been taking great pains, both with Mr Tung and other prominent Hong Kong visitors, to explain why the Special Administrative Region (SAR) should not be 'political'.

This is how the argument goes: If Hong Kong becomes political, it will become another focus for foreign intervention - in addition to the separatist movements in Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang.

It will also set off repercussions within mainland China, as people, learning from the Hong Kong example, will become more vocal in airing political demands.

The leadership in Beijing will then be forced to divert its energy away from the key central task of economic development.

Further, if the SAR gets too embroiled in political debates, it will not be able to stay focused on reviving the economy, thus nullifying Beijing's efforts to boost the fragile economy.

Sources told The Straits Times that Mr Zeng made it clear that China's leaders found particularly distasteful the notion that the SAR would become a model for China's own democratisation.

DISSENTING OPINIONS

MANY Hong Kong people do not share Beijing's view about how their city should position itself. At a recent conference, entitled Hong Kong's Past And Future: More Than An Economic City, more than 400 people spent an entire day discussing the future of their city. The title itself showed that they disagreed with Beijing.

One of the organisers was Mr Paul Yip, a former adviser to Mr Tung who lost his job because of his non-conformist views. His active involvement suggests that even among Beijing supporters, there are dissenting opinions about limiting Hong Kong's role to an economic one.

It is also noteworthy that the conference was funded by two of Hong Kong's lar- gest business groups, tycoon Li Ka Shing's Hutchison Whampoa and the Kwok Brothers' Sun Hung Kai Properties.

Co-sponsoring were two influential business organisations - the 140-year-old General Chamber of Commerce and The Better Hong Kong Foundation.

Explaining the business sector's active involvement, Mr Yip said: 'The July 1 demonstration changed the paradigm. People are awakening to the fact that the SAR needs speedier democratisation.

'Even Mr Li Ka Shing said publicly that he was proud of Hong Kong when he referred to the July 1 demonstration, an event which Beijing frowned upon.'

Three main themes stood out at the conference: preserving the SAR's historical role in bringing about changes in China, energising modernisation of the nation, and creating a more democratic government in the SAR.

Mr Yip said in his position paper that historically, Hong Kong had been a catalyst for China's political development. This role, he argued, should not be terminated artificially.

'This is Hong Kong's most valuable contribution to the nation that no other Chinese city could offer. If this role is clipped, the city would lose its distinctiveness and become a crippled one,' he said.

Legislator Christine Loh of the Civic Exchange, a think-tank advocating democracy, said in her paper that 'Hong Kong is small in physical terms, but continues to be a significant energiser in the overall modernisation of China'. She claimed there was 'the long-delayed realisation that Hong Kong's strengths extend beyond its economic and business know-how'.

'The fact that Hong Kong has a different operating system has made it an extremely useful testing ground in the development of China as the 'one country two systems' experiment often highlights the type and timing of reform needed on the mainland,' she argued.

Professor Anthony Cheung of the Synergy Net, a loose association of young professionals, focused on the need for speedier democratisation in the SAR itself.

He said the July 1 protest showed the lack of an adequately fair, open and predictable political process for translating public preferences and mandate into policy responses. 'To be a strong economic city, Hong Kong must at the same time be an active citizen society enjoying a democratic and accountable system of government.'

There is no doubt that after all is said and done, it is Beijing's view of Hong Kong's role that will prevail.

But the cost of brushing aside all these other aspirations of many of Hong Kong's elite will be great indeed.