[香港新聞] Chuck Chiang: Beijing’s hard-line stand on \ former, future, stand

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Chuck Chiang: Beijing’s hard-line stand on election means uncertainty for Hong Kong
Beijing has once again dashed Hong Kong’s hopes for free elections, and the resulting ideological split could have implications for future stability of the city.
After decades of controlling how Hong Kong, a former British colony, elected it leaders, Beijing had been promising universal suffrage in 2017.
However, on Aug. 31, Beijing said it will still preapprove who can run for the job of the city’s chief executive in the 2017 election.
While the decision is no surprise, it fell far short of what pro-democracy forces in Hong Kong (a “special administrative region” of China) were hoping for and protests broke out immediately.
Officials in Beijing said candidates for chief executive election would have to be vetted beforehand to ensure they are “patriots” who are loyal to both China and Hong Kong.
Protests broke out in the city’s Central business district soon after the decision was announced. Opponents in Hong Kong’s legislature, as well as many academics and students, voiced their collective displeasure. Organizers promised further demonstrations, including a peaceful “Occupy”-style protest in the district at a future date. Some organizers said civil disobedience is the protesters’ main leverage in the debate.
Beijing is steadfast in showing where the final say on Hong Kong’s political reality comes from. Officials noted Hong Kong’s governors under British rule were appointed rather than elected, and that Beijing’s top priority is maintaining Hong Kong’s stability, and, thus, prosperity. Beijing insists it will not yield to civil disobedience. Pro-democracy protests, Beijing says, should be discouraged as they will not force a renewal of dialogue, but a hardening of existing positions.
This is obviously not a situation conducive of reducing tension and friction. It adds more uncertainly to a city with a big role in global commerce and trade for at least the past half century, but has seen uncertainty over its future quietly mount in the background.
A British colony before being handed back to China in 1997, Hong Kong is an global city, complete with the regional headquarters of many international banks, investment firms and other support services firms. Its port is among the busiest in the world, facilitating the global flow of goods between Asia and the rest of the world. Its location on the “Canton Route” ensures its role as a commercial aviation hub.
When China opened its doors to foreign trade and investment in the late 1970s, Hong Kong further benefited by becoming the gateway to the market that, as of today, stands as the second largest in the world.
But Hong Kong’s role within China since the handover in 1997 is also a source of tension for residents in the SAR. As the rest of China is catching up in terms of development, Hong Kong is losing many of its advantages and uniqueness within China’s economic structure. Chinese research firm Trigger Trend, according to a report from Foreign Policy, noted Hong Kong’s GDP fell behind that of the mega-cities of Beijing and Shanghai last year. Growth rates in Hong Kong, estimated at two per cent annually, pale in comparison of Chinese figures that push closer to double-digits.
The most telling fact is that Hong Kong’s GDP has fallen from almost 16 per cent of China’s total figure to just under three per cent in 16 years. At this rate, several more Chinese cities will soon overtake Hong Kong in China’s ranking of primary economic centres, rendering the former British enclave essentially a “secondary-level city.”

Hong Kong still has some real advantages over its Mainland Chinese competitors because of its status under the “One Country, Two Systems” scheme introduced by former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping that is the framework of Beijing’s policy on Hong Kong. Its independent judiciary and robust legal system, extensive modern infrastructure, highly educated workforce, press and personal freedoms, foreign ties and pro-private-sector policies have all been major factors in many western investors preferring Hong Kong to a competitor like Shanghai, which many view as its chief Chinese rival. (A newly launched Free Trade Zone in Shanghai, theoretically challenging many of these advantages, so far has not made noticeable impact.)

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For Hong Kong citizens, who are known for their pragmatism, the most alarming part of Beijing’s recent move is the fear that, by being brought closer in line with the rest of the country, Hong Kong will eventually lose those competitive advantages.

Still, their reaction — more pro-democracy protests ­— also run the risk of disrupting the pro-business atmosphere in Hong Kong and scaring away foreign investors. For a city so dependent on international business, such a development would be a crushing blow.

The stakes are high for Beijing, as well. Hong Kong has been a major force for good in the Mainland’s economic development, facilitating investment and cultural contact between China and the West for decades. Hong Kong’s charm as a liberal bastion of Asian commerce set on a Western foundation has proved more palatable to foreigners entering the market, while Chinese officials from other places were able to gain valuable insights and experiences on how to modernize through Hong Kong. (An examples are the subway systems in Beijing, Shanghai and most other Chinese cities, complete with British accents in the English announcements — one of several traces of Hong Kong’s system serving as a model of modernization in China).

Hong Kong still acts in many ways as a major focal point for how the West interacts with China proper. Any decisions Beijing makes about Hong Kong will be followed by western interests closely.

There has already been calls for London, as Hong Kong’s former ruler, to look into the situation. The British Parliament has cautiously started a procedural inquiry into the situation, and Beijing in response has protested strongly, referring to the move as foreign interference on domestic affairs, according to a BBC report.

There are also implications for Taiwan, where the public watches China’s decisions on Hong Kong closely. The government in Taipei has been increasingly, but controversially, seeking closer economic ties with Beijing.

Taiwan, which boasts a robust democracy but an increasingly uncertain economic future, is in a tough spot.

It wants to join the multi-country Trans-Pacific Partnership talks while looking to Mainland China as a cog in its economic solution (through existing trade agreements land potential future deals).

But politically, China remains unmoved in its desire to eventually have Taiwan reunify, while public sentiment on the island remains lukewarm (at best). For those looking to Hong Kong as a potential example of how Beijing would interact with Taiwan in a “One Country, Two Systems” setting, recent developments will serve to throw a chill over how the Taiwanese public views closer ties now and any potential future reunification.

Beijing must be aware of how all its decisions play out. The fact that officials decided to go ahead with the Hong Kong announcement anyway demonstrates the over-arching priority they put on maintaining a clear line-of-command in the country’s political structure. While observers in the West likened the vetting of candidates to knowing the result of an election before it takes place, China views it as crucial to its national security to deal with potentially destabilizing western influence.
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The question now is whether the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong will intensify or fade away.

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Pro-democracy lawmaker Helena Wong Pik-wan, centre, is hauled away by security guards after a protest against Li Fei, deputy secretary general of the National People’s Congress’ Standing Committee, during a briefing session in Hong Kong last week. Beijinh has ruled out allowing open nominations in the inaugural egeneral lection for Hong Kong’s leader, saying they would create a “chaotic society.” Democracy activists in the Asian