China chooses HK's new governor

It looks very much as if leading Hong Kong businessman Tung Chee-hwa will succeed Chris Patten as Chief Executive of Hong Kong on the stroke of midnight on July 1, 1997. Our Asia correspondent Harvey Stockwin reports on the complex process deployed by China, and the united front tactics that went with it, to make sure that China's choice will become Hong Kong's choice, too, when Tung is duly "elected" on Dec. 11.

HONG KONG (JP): Hong Kong moved much closer to becoming a not- very-autonomous part of China on Nov. 15 as 400 members of the Hong Kong elite dutifully ratified China's choice to be their first governor under Chinese sovereignty.

China's Vice-Premier and Foreign Minister Qian Qichen hailed the day as the beginning of democracy in Hong Kong. In the sense that democracy, as manipulated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), consists of democratic forms used to conceal the actual function of a rubber stamp, Qian was undoubtedly correct.

A more realistic conclusion would be that Hong Kong, to some extent by its own choice, will in future enjoy little of the autonomy which China once promised to bestow.

Instead Hong Kong will be given more of the illusion of consultation under China's colonial rule than it ever had under British colonial rule.

Needless to say, there were no consultations with the Hong Kong people whenever the 28 Hong Kong Governors of British Hong Kong were chosen. Nor did the British try and make it look like Hong Kong was doing the deciding.

The choice was made usually as a result of bureaucratic politics in the old Colonial Office, or, more recently, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office before being ratified by ministers. Almost certainly, the incumbent Governor Chris Patten was the only Hong Kong governor ever chosen as a result of a decision directly made by the Prime Minister.

Throughout the 12-year transition from British to Chinese rule, Beijing has insisted upon inheriting all the powers and trappings of British sovereignty, thereby, perhaps unwittingly, casting itself in the role of the new colonial power over the territory.

Qian Qichen further illustrated this tendency as he hailed China's willingness to consult the people in contrast to British reluctance. Were the Chinese more sensitive to Hong Kong's frustrated sense of self-determination, they would not compare themselves to the British at all. Nor would Beijing act as London once did.

Hong Kong formally reverts to China on July 1 next year, when it becomes a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the People's Republic of China. But the ostensibly autonomous government due to take over on that day has, of course, to be chosen beforehand.

China has already indicated that it will abrogate Hong Kong's first-ever fully elected Legislative Council and replace it with a wholly appointed provisional legislature -- a move fraught with negative implications for the future of the rule of law, which China once promised to uphold.

There is, for example, no mention of any provisional legislature in the Basic Law (constitution) which has been drawn up for the Hong Kong SAR. But then for China's current dynasty, that presents no problem -- there is no tradition in communist China of the constitution determining political decisions, only of political decisions determining the constitution.

But Hong Kong's Basic Law does lay out a complicated process whereby the first Chief Executive for Hong Kong will be selected.

China's united front tactics vis-a-vis Hong Kong have been to create a complicated process which it basically controls but which, partly because of the complexity, it can pass off as being democratic. The fact that a significant segment of the Hong Kong elite, together with Hong Kong's ostensibly free but often unthinking press and television, have chosen to hail the "selection" as an "election" is a plus from China's point of view. It adds immeasurably to the "democratic" illusion.

The crucial moment in this selection process, helpfully captured on video, came last January in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. A delegation of 50 or so of China's supporters from Hong Kong was gathered for a group picture to be taken with Chinese President and CCP secretary-general Jiang Zemin.

Almost certainly, the crucial unseen process which preceded the picture-taking had been uncommonly similar to that adopted by the British when selecting a governor. Very likely the Chinese Foreign Ministry, like the Foreign Office in London, would have had some input into the decision. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, attached to China's State Council (cabinet), would have had a say -- as the Colonial Office once did. It is faintly possible that, as with John Major vis-a-vis Chris Patten, so Jiang Zemin decided China's choice pretty much on his own. Much more likely, before Jiang attended the picture-taking, the Standing Committee of the politburo of the CCP met and agreed who should be the preferred candidate.

Back to the picture-taking. On the video, Jiang comes into the room. He is not the most subtle of men, and it quickly becomes obvious that he has been delegated to undertake a special task at the picture-taking. He walks up and down the group looking for one particular Hong Kong person. At first, he does not see him, but, when he does, he moves past the first row into the crowd to shake hands with him. He shakes hands with no one else.

Today, the Chinese, as they stress the democratic illusion, are claiming it was an accidental handshake. Nothing could be further from the truth. It was a very purposeful act.

With that handshake, Jiang was expertly playing upon the well- springs of compliance and sycophancy to those in authority, which run as deep in China's political culture as mufakat and musyawarah run in Indonesia's, or as non-compliance and protest run in India's.

The group got the message, and so did all other pro-China members of the elite back home in Hong Kong. So on Nov. 15, the man with whom Jiang shook hands, shipping magnate Tung Chee-hwa was dutifully given 206 out of 385 ballots in the first round of "voting" for the first Chief Executive.

Foreign Minister Qian stressed that the result was not pre- determined and that the Hong Kong "voters" chose according to their will. His very emphasis only underlined his anxiety lest outside critics jibe at what was blatantly one more rubber stamp. But Qian could take comfort from the large number of Hong Kong "voters" who assured the waiting TV cameras that they were voting their conscience.

A lot of moves were made in between the Standing Committee of the politburo deciding, and the Hong Kong elite complying. The voting on Nov. 15 was done by a 400-strong Selection Committee composed wholly of Hong Kong persons. The Selection Committee had been earlier voted in by a much larger Preparatory Committee, comprising both Chinese mainland and Hong Kong personnel, set up to help oversee the handover.

The Preparatory Committee itself was selected by the Chinese communist authorities from among several thousand Hong Kong residents who applied to be on it.

Originally, some 30 Hong Kong citizens advanced themselves for the post of Chief Executive. This number was then whittled down to eight. The voting on Nov. 15 was merely to further reduce the number and finalize the nominations. Only those candidates who received 50 ballots or more would proceed to the final round of voting on Dec. 11. Four of the eight nominees received no votes at all.

Almost unnoticed here in Hong Kong, amidst this ostensibly complicated process, Beijing has managed to sustain another tradition of China's governance.

Wherever possible, those who rule China have always preferred that the persons in charge of one province should actually come from another province. It has been China's way of making sure that provincial autonomy never goes too far, as it might do if natives of every province were always in charge.

On Nov. 15, the one native Cantonese in the running, retired judge Simon Li Fook-sean, was eliminated with 43 votes. The overwhelming majority of Hong Kong's population are Cantonese, having come originally from various parts of surrounding Guangdong province.

The other two successful nominees, who will now help conjure up the illusion that there is a real "contest", were retired Supreme Court Chief Justice Yang Ti Liang, who received 82 votes, and leading businessman Peter Woo Kwong-ching, 54 votes. They will only have a chance to win in the unlikely event that Tung says or does something extremely foolish in the next few weeks.

Interestingly Tung, Yang and Woo, while all speaking the Cantonese dialect, were all born in Shanghai.

By a strange coincidence, of course, the power base of President Jiang Zemin is -- Shanghai.

Window: It has been China's way of making sure that provincial autonomy never goes too far, as it might do if natives of every province were always in charge.