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Hong Kong: model or nightmare?

`Such naked exercise of coercive power, which threatens the spirit, if not the letter, of the law enshrining a special 50-year status for Hong Kong, has an important message for Taiwan.'

Beijing is wielding the big stick against Hong Kong. This must worry Taiwan, if it were to contemplate union with China. Hong Kong, after all, is supposed to be the model for an autonomous Taiwan. Beijing is now pointedly telling Hong Kong that it should learn to live within the parameters laid down by China, or else.

Worried by the democrats' gains in the district council elections last November, Beijing is determined not to let it get repeated in the September legislative polls. A senior Chinese official has warned Hong Kong democrats to toe the line or face the consequences. He reportedly said, "I have a knife. Normally, I would not use it. Now it is the democrats who force me to use it."

When asked by the assembled journalists in the territory to amplify the word "knife," he added, "Please note that the Basic Law has provided for the dissolution of the legislature." And to make clear that Beijing was not simply bluffing, he said that they replaced the British-sponsored legislature under then-governor Chris Patten after China took over the territory in mid-1997, as they had warned.

For added emphasis, he said that at the time "our national power was still far behind what it is today, and yet we still had the courage to do so." He elaborated, "Given our greater economic might now and Hong Kong's heavy dependency on China," Beijing wouldn't hesitate to abolish a democratic legislature working against its dictate. And: "We are not afraid that such a move would trigger capital flight."

Beijing's warning is primarily directed at the territory's democrats and the people in general; though it is also meant to ward off international disquiet and criticism -- from the US in particular. One might recall that it was unnerved by the massive public protest last July against the proposed draconian internal security law and had to back off. The subsequent district council elections in November only showed that the democratic sentiment was alive as ever.

Hence, the need to forewarn that any attempt by a newly elected legislature to speed up the process of democratization for universal franchise to elect the territory's chief executive by 2007 and the legislature by 2008 will not be tolerated. In other words, Hong Kong could end up losing its "autonomy."

At about the same time, Bei-jing was telling Hong Kong Secretary for Administration Donald Tsang (曾蔭權) that the territory's "high degree of autonomy" was at the behest of the central government. Otherwise, Hong Kong was just like any other region in China. In other words, there was nothing sacrosanct about the territory's status. It could easily be relieved of its special autonomous status.

Beijing spelled out two more conditions. First, in the "one country, two systems" model, "one country" must always take precedence over "two systems." Two, the center would honor Hong Kong's status as a special admin-istrative region only with "patriots" as the linchpin of the system. In other words, it would like to exclude democrats not approved by Beijing -- notwithstanding their popular appeal.

And who are these unpatriotic people? They are members of organizations aiming to overthrow the communist regime in China. This refers specially to the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, formed in 1989 to protest against the Tiananmen democracy movement crackdown. Always a thorn in China's side, it has invited even more ire by the disclosure of its chairman, Szeto Wah, that he had spurned Beijing's overtures to step down in exchange for speedier democratization in Hong Kong.

It is noteworthy that Beijing's definition of "patriots" excludes people who refuse to equate communist rule with loyalty to the motherland. They don't buy the party line that it has the monopoly on political power and hence the credentials to demand absolute loyalty indistinguishable from the nation.

But Hong Kong is a dilemma because Beijing is committed to a special autonomous status for the territory with a timetable for implementation of universal suffrage by 2007 and 2008. Beijing, though, is not keen on doing this for fear of losing total control of the territory's political process and its deeper implications for China. And it is prepared to go to any length to thwart the democratization process unless it was carefully crafted with the legislators doing its bidding as "patriots."

Such naked exercise of coercive power, which threatens the spirit, if not the letter, of the law enshrining a special 50-year status for Hong Kong, has an important message for Taiwan. Beijing has by now created an important constituency in Taiwan keen to broadly toe the Chinese line. For them, the absence of crude political interference in Hong Kong's governing process could become an acceptable model (with some variations and over a period of time) for another "one country" and "two systems." But, as we have seen, Hong Kong is now receiving an alternative message to shape up or ship out with its special status.

Compared to Hong Kong, Taiwan is much more evolved as a political entity with its own democratic processes and institutions. The nation will find it hard to compromise itself to fit into Beijing's policy. Even more difficult will be the requirement to equate the communist party rule with loyalty to the nation, with no hope in the foreseeable future of living under a plural and changeable political system. The coming presidential election will, therefore, be an interesting barometer of Taiwan's political weather.

Sushil Seth is a freelance writer based in Sydney.
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