Letter to Hong Kong (2007-07-15)

Dear Yan Yan,

How is your new job? It must be an interesting experience to become independent. To be able to support oneself and taking full responsibility of one ’ s own life is a sign of maturity. In one way you must feel relief that school is finally over, but in another way, you must have a sense of achievement and satisfaction, and that you don ’ t have to depend on others.

Unfortunately, the political situation in Hong Kong is not the case. After twenty years of consultation and discussion, Hong Kong ’ s political system is still going nowhere and remains in infancy. The Chief Executive is still not democratically elected, and half of the Legislative Council is not elected by universal suffrage.

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) is starting another full scale consultation on political development. They just publish the Green Paper on electoral reform and the consultation period is three months. I don ’ t know if you are aware that the former colonial government also had a full scaled consultation on political reform twenty years ago. Interestingly, it was in 1987 that Mr. Hsu Hsung led the consultation of “ Green Paper: The 1987 Review of Developments in Representative Government ” and publish “ Public Response to Green Paper: The 1987 Review of Developments in Representative Government ” . You may not know that Mr. Hsu was the secretary-general of campaign office of Mr. Donald Tsang, who was recently elected by the eight hundred member electoral committee. Mr. Hsu was famous for his skill in the manipulation of public opinion. In the consultation twenty years ago, he created a result which indicated that the majority of the Hong Kong people did not support direct election. Doesn ’ t it sound familiar? Many pro-government forces recently also voiced similar views.

It is astonishing to see that the view against democracy does not change in the last twenty years. I am not sure of the role that Mr. Hsu plays in this consultation. I hope that he will not be involved in the drafting of the report of the consultation, but I see his shadow in Stephen Lam, the minister responsible for constitutional affair.

As for the green paper on electoral reform, I believe that the paper is used as a tactic to delay democratic development and continue to deprive Hong Kong people ’ s right for open and free election. In the green paper, it lists a number of options for a road map and timetable for both the election of the legislative council and the chief executive. Some of the options suggest that universal suffrage will be attained in phases, and the phases may be in 2012, in 2016, or even after 2020.

In government ’ s green paper, it usually provides policy direction, but not this time. The green paper on electoral reform fails to provide a clear direction on democratic development. It just provides a lot of open-ended questions about the mechanics and timing of the elections for the chief executive and Legislative Council. Although the consultation paper is lengthy and looked complicated, I believe that there are one main theme and two major features in the green paper. The main theme is simple – Hong Kong will not have open and free election now or in the foreseeable future.

As for the two main features, the first is that the functional constituency of the Legislative Council is going to be retained permanently. And the second feature is that there will be a new screening process for the nomination of the chief executive.

According to the Basic Law, the chief executive should be nominated by a broadly representative committee in accordance with democratic procedures. I believe that the Hong Kong SAR Government will provide new meaning for “ democratic procedures ” . Since the change-over, we learned new meaning in a lot of things. Doesn ’ t the Central Committee of the People ’ s Congress interpret the law three times, and each time they have new meanings in our law. I was reminded by my friend that the word democracy and democratic principle can be commonly found in the Chinese constitution, and the Chinese government have their own meaning of the word. So we should not be surprised this time they use democratic procedure to create new screening mechanism to determine who is eligible to become candidates for the chief executive election. It is highly likely that the pan-democrats candidate will never be able to pass the screening process.

In the past few years, Donald Tsang ’ s administration put a lot of emphasis on strong governance and leadership. But curiously, the green paper doesn ’ t show any. In forming Hong Kong ’ s political landscape, the SAR Government has shown no vision and leadership. The green paper is merely a booklet with historical material and a manual with multiple choice questions. I believe the design of the green paper is intended to confuse the general public and create a political maze that will enable the government to determine the outcome of the report. In confusion, the government can easily manipulate the findings and data. They have done it twenty years ago.

In this consultation, he government encourage to public to speak out and voice their views. I think that is the only thing that I can ’ t disagree. The government has polarized Hong Kong people on political development, and used the polarization to stop any political reform. There was no development and no improvement in the last ten years. Although surveys indicated that 60% of Hong Kong people want universal suffrage as soon as possible, the administration keep insisting that there is no consensus on political development, and thus no change.

I believe that this time Hong Kong people should not be drawn into the political maze created by the government. We should be able to cut through the maze and head towards the same direction for political reform. We have to emphasize and focus on the basic and fundamental question. The direction and the question are straight and simple. Hong Kong people want democratic election, and democratic election means open and free election. Any election system which deviates from free and open election will not be accepted. Any rhetoric and tactic mean to delay the implementation of free and open election should be opposed rigorously and strongly condemned. Hong Kong people should speak in one strong voice, and join in one united front.

We should act now. We should act without any hesitation and without any uncertainty. We should tell the Hong Kong Government, the Chinese Government, and the world, that we want free and open election for the chief executive and legislative council in 2012.If we fail to act this time, we are repeating the same mistake twenty years ago. The report on electoral reform will indicate that there is no consensus among Hong Kong people, and thus Hong Kong will not have democratic election in the foreseeable future. Hong Kong people should learn from experience, and should not repeat the same tragedy.