Whatever Happened to Hong Kong?  
The mood is grim five years after the handover to China

June 28, 2002

Hong Kong’s return to Chinese rule on July 1, 1997, was dramatic. Fireworks burst over a glittering harbor, Chinese troops marched into the former British colony. There were thousands of journalists, celebrities and political figures on hand to ponder: “What will happen to Hong Kong?” With the handover’s fifth anniversary celebration, which promises to be a gloomy and poorly attended affair, the answer is here — a slow, steady erosion of rights in Hong Kong and a painful economic slowdown.


 UNDER THE DEAL signed by Beijing and London in 1984, Hong Kong was promised that it would be allowed to maintain its unique political and social system for 50 years after the handover and that Beijing would control only its foreign policy and defense.
 But as Tung Chee-hwa steps up to be sworn in for a second five-year term as the Hong Kong government’s top official, flanked by top leaders from Beijing, Hong Kong activists are bitterly disappointed, citing a steady loss of momentum for democracy and human rights. They argue that Tung and fellow conservatives in Hong Kong’s super-rich elite are gladly moving the territory toward a more autocratic system, which is more comfortable for Beijing, or at least not promoting planned democratic reform.
 “In the past five years, Mr. Tung has ignored all requests, including those from the (Legislative Council), for public consultation on political reforms,” writes legislator Emily Lau, a prominent democracy activist who led an unsuccessful campaign against Tung’s uncontested second term. “Under the current system, political power is concentrated in the hands of the rich and those with connections in Beijing.”

 
TUNG’S NEW DEAL
 One of the most important changes takes effect on this anniversary as a new system governing Hong Kong’s vast civil service kicks in. Under a system introduced by Tung and later made law by the legislature, 14 “ministers” appointed by Tung, rather than career civil servants, will run the 190,000-strong force. Tung argues that his new “accountability system” allows the removal of ministers who do not perform.
 His critics say the minister positions are accountable to Tung, but not to the legislature or the public. To them, the new system is a radical departure from one that prided itself on non-politicized civil service. The new system, in addition to post-handover changes to election rules, concentrates more power in the hands of the chief executive.
 Indeed, the plans that eventually led to this change may well be what sparked Anson Chan, easily the most trusted political figure in Hong Kong, to retire last year, before finishing her term. Chan, a carry-over from the colonial government who headed the civil service, was No. 2 to Tung in the post-handover administration.

Hong Kong anniversary news
 She was, by every poll, far more popular with the Hong Kong people than Tung but too close to Britain for Beijing, which had advised her to better “support” Tung. Her departure shocked Hong Kong and seriously eroded faith in the administration. Her remarkably diplomatic farewell address didn’t expose whatever discord existed, but the worst was inferred by gloomy analysts. Thousands of civil servants are expected to protest the new system on July 7.
 
TROUBLING PRECEDENTS, OR EXCEPTIONS?
 The fact that the workers can organize protests, of course, means there’s been no cataclysmic swing toward authoritarian rule — no sudden rush to order Mao suits.
 Han Dongfang, a labor activist from China much despised by Beijing’s leadership, continues to broadcast pro-union messages to Chinese workers across the border on the U.S.-backed Radio Free Asia. The Catholic Church in Hong Kong has strong Vatican ties, despite Beijing’s refusal to let the state-sanctioned Catholic Church on the mainland have official contact with Rome. And every year, Hong Kong citizens come out by the thousands to mark the June 4 anniversary of the 1989 crackdown on Tiananmen protesters in Beijing.
 These freedoms are largely intact, but Lau and others say there are warning signs: In April, Harry Wu, a Chinese-born American human-rights activist, was denied entry to Hong Kong for what immigration officials said were reasons of “security.”
 Practitioners of Falun Gong, a spiritual meditation group banned on the mainland, were arrested for blocking a sidewalk. (Tung has not moved to ban the group but showed his cards when he agreed with Beijing that the group was an “evil cult.”)
 This year, a troubling legal clause added to Hong Kong law, requiring a permit for public demonstrations, was used for the first time, as authorities decided to prosecute three democracy activists who demonstrated without the papers.
 In April, a longtime China journalist with the Hong Kong-based daily South China Morning Post was fired for “insubordination.” Jasper Becker, who had written books on China, believes he was fired as part of a campaign to root out voices critical of Beijing, especially at the English-language Post.
 “The process of bringing (The Post) around to take a pro-Beijing stance is being carried out in a step-by-step way to avoid creating alarm” starting with the purchase by pro-Beijing tycoon Robert Kuok several years earlier, Becker wrote in an editorial in the Washington Post explaining why he was fired.
 
WHO CAN LIVE IN HONG KONG?
 One of the most divisive issues since the handover has been over who has the right to live in Hong Kong — a glittering icon of prosperity to millions living in poverty across the border.
 The immediate question involves about 5,000 Chinese mainland citizens whose parents have the right to live in Hong Kong. The situations are varied and heart-rending. For instance, a Hong Kong truck driver who transports goods from China to Hong Kong’s port gets married and has a child on the mainland side of the border. The “right to abode” fight pits those who think his family should be immediately united against those who argue Hong Kong’s schools and social services will be overwhelmed if such family members enter.
 It is a complex legal question. Hong Kong’s court ruled on the lenient side, a decision that some estimated would allow 200,000 to 1.6 million new residents to flood into Hong Kong, already one of the most densely populated places on earth. Based on the decision, thousands came to Hong Kong and applied for residency.

 What turned it from a difficult emotional issue into a difficult political issue was when Hong Kong’s government, regretting the court’s decision, asked for an interpretation of the law by Beijing. Beijing effectively overturned the Hong Kong court decision, using a power it saw as granted by the 1984 handover deal. Since then, Hong Kong has moved to deport the Chinese residency-seekers. Protests, tearful scenes and now police raids to deport the illegal migrants have marked the ugly struggle.
 At the same time, the decision seriously undermined confidence in the independence of Hong Kong’s judicial system.
 
ECONOMIC GLOOM
 Arguably, legal issues are not the first concern of Hong Kong’s 6.8 million people. The economic slump is.
 In the lead-up to the 1997 handover, the economy was booming, with annual growth rates of 7 percent. Tea ladies and taxi drivers were making money from the soaring stock market. Thousands of people became rich by owning property in a market that just kept going up.
 The handover, while bittersweet, was celebrated in style, with lavish parties around the territory and millions spent on fireworks.
 But the Asian economic crisis hit in late 1997, hitting property prices and clobbering the real-estate heavy stock market. And just as Hong Kong appeared ready to climb out, the trade-dependent territory was hit by a slump in U.S demand for imports.
 Now the economy is creeping forward at about 1 percent a year, and unemployment is over 7 percent.
 With frustrations growing, self-help books have been doing brisk sales.
 And suicide is on the rise. After one particularly bad week in April, when seven people committed suicide and three children died when their mothers brought them along on their suicides, one local clothing retailer rushed to sell T-shirts emblazoned with the anti-suicide message: “Treasure life.”
 But the economic gloom certainly can’t be blamed on China, which has been careful not to interfere in the capitalist system of Hong Kong.
 And China’s takeover can’t be blamed for the slump in growth. If anything, China’s strong export business, passing through Hong Kong, and a growing number of Chinese tourists help bolster Hong Kong’s flagging numbers.
 
Kari Huus is an international reporter and editor for MSNBC.com
http://www.msnbc.com/news/773668.asp