Hong Kongers to cast 'Ballot of the Five Noes' tomorrow

In Chinese political parlance the Hong Kong election this weekend is the "Ballot of the Five Noes" -- No democracy, No power, No future, No enthusiasm and No turnout. Our Asia correspondent Harvey Stockwin tries to explain.

HONG KONG (JP): As 2.57 million Hong Kong residents have the opportunity to go to the polls tomorrow (September 17th), it is uncertain whether the election will enhance or diminish Hong Kong's survival prospects as the bustling city-state approaches its transfer from British to Chinese sovereignty on July 1st 1997.

It seems unlikely that the ballot will actually reverse the looming sense of tragedy-to-come in Hong Kong which the British and Chinese governments have, wittingly or unwittingly, done so much to instill. The Hong Kong people have also made their distinctive contribution. As always, fatalism and democracy go ill together.

For a start, Sunday's voting for the colony's Legislative Council (Legco) is the first complete election to that body ever held in Hong Kong -- right at the tail end of 154 years of British rule. For the most part, the British in Hong Kong, without ever making the aim explicit, have been content to sustain a more benevolent form of authoritarianism to that customarily practiced, through the ages, within China proper. Western missionaries once tried to convert China to Christianity, but British rule had no missionary zeal to add democracy to China's cultural menu.

Since most Hong Kong Chinese have always seen Hong Kong as being part of China, and therefore without a separate identity of its own, until recently there has been little local pressure on the British to depart from this authoritarian pattern. Fifty years ago, Governor Sir Mark Young saw Hong Kong as part of the post-colonial world emerging after World War II and offered to institute an elected Legco. The wholly-appointed Legco of the day rejected the proposal.

Secondly, voting on September 17th will be for a body that is as much consultative as legislative. Legco must pass the bills which the government places before it. The government nearly always gets its way. On the rare occasions when private members bills are placed before the house, they usually get rejected. None of the elected Legco members have ever served on the Governor's wholly-appointed Executive Council (Exco) -- the institution ultimately responsible for governing Hong Kong.

Hong Kong can be said to be self-governing because the local bureaucracy, in which British expatriates play an ever diminishing role, really runs Hong Kong. The advent of directly elected members in Legco in 1991 has led to greater Legco oversight of the administration, much to the irritation of some of the bureaucrats. But the real power to govern still resides with Exco and the bureaucracy, not with Legco.

Thirdly, the trouble with the Legco now being elected is that it is not merely without much power -- it is also scheduled to enjoy a very short life. The Chinese government has pledged to terminate the Legco which is about to be elected (plus all other elected consultative bodies set up by the British) on June 30th 1997. The Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress passed a resolution to this effect on August 31st 1994, thereby ending hopes that current British era institutions would ride a "through train" into the future of China's control.

The likely short life relates directly to the fact that all members of Legco are being elected for the first time in 1995. This, in turn, relates to differences between Britain and China before the ink was dry on the 1984 Joint Declaration under which Hong Kong's retrocession to China was agreed.

The Chinese thought, or hoped, that Hong Kong would have as little democracy in 1997, as it did in 1984. The British thought, or hoped, that the agreement made it possible for some democracy to be developed to buttress the high degree of autonomy which China was promising to bestow.

At one stage Britain did announce some relatively ambitious plans for modest democratic advance, though never for complete democratic rule. The essentially authoritarian basis of the government was preserved. China responded by denouncing the plans as a breach of the Joint Declaration. Britain backed down and sustained a policy of appeasing China rather than politically developing Hong Kong. In the wake of the 1989 Beijing Massacre, and the massive public demonstration against it on the streets of Hong Kong, China became even more intransigent towards any democratic advance in the colony.

Hong Kong reacted to China's intransigence in two contradictory ways. On the one hand, many in the Hong Kong elite, particularly businessmen, became "China whateverists" -- their statements on Hong Kong's future requirements being guided by the principle that whatever China said or did was right. The growth of the China whateverist faction within Hong Kong has been truly remarkable, given the recent ease with which China has taken positions which do not accord with Hong Kong's interests. Relatively few voices have been raised, for example, to protest the Chinese decision to terminate Legco.

On the other hand, there have been those who belatedly began to develop a sense of Hong Kong identity, and to actively push for further democratic advance with which to buttress future autonomy. In the 1991 election the Democrat Party, led by lawyer Martin Lee, swept 12 out of 18 elected seats.

Then came Governor Christopher Patten, exuding a resolve which, if steadily manifest by the British from 1984 onwards, might have made a crucial difference. Patten did not introduce elected members to the Executive Council, nor did he appoint Legco members as ministers with supervisory roles over the bureaucracy. He did not abandon the British agreement with China, to have only 20 Legco members directly elected in geographical constituencies in 1995.

What Patten did, by way of compromise with the democratic pressures which he was feeling both from home and within Hong Kong, was to make the sixty Legco members wholly-elected in 1995, with the other 40 members being chosen in various ways, notably to represent greatly expanded "functional constituencies".

Functional constituencies consist of various trades, skills or professions. Previously, to give a theoretical example, the electorate choosing a member to represent the medical profession consisted of doctors only. Now, all the nurses and clerks are on the list, too. So Patten effectively widened the scope of balloting and many of Hong Kong's 2.57 million registered voters will now cast two votes -- one for a geographical constituency and one for a functional constituency.

Since it obviously wanted no democratic progress whatsoever, Beijing did not view this as a compromise, and became even more intransigent, not less. Patten was excoriated for his pains, often in personally abusive terms, and accused of breaching the Joint Declaration and Hong Kong's future Basic Law. These propositions are dubious, at best, but were nonetheless cited in the NPC resolution terminating Hong Kong's elected bodies on June 30th 1997.

This complex background is necessary for any understanding of this election, and the overall lack of enthusiasm which it has engendered. Hong Kong-ites are nothing if not pragmatic, famed for their business acumen, with no tradition of committing endless support to what seems likely to be a failing business.

Additionally, the absence of democracy in Hong Kong was for long supported by the essentially apolitical attitudes of the people. A majority of them are, after all, refugees from China precisely because politics, under the communists, has too often been mindlessly in command, creating chaos. Hong Kong was valued because it was free from this defect.

In line with this tendency towards apathy, turnouts in local Hong Kong elections have been abysmally low, and have yet to reach forty percent. The turnout was 39 percent in 1991 and that was considered something of a triumph. One poll predicts the figure sinking to 31.5 percent this year which, given the increase in the electoral register, would still mean an increase in the number of people voting.

Yet when all is said and done, democracy has developed in Hong Kong more than anyone expected. Two parties have emerged to put the electoral exercise in the context of Hong Kong's looming reversion to Chinese control.

On the one hand there are Martin Lee's Democratic Party, arguing fiercely that Hong Kong people must stand up for their rights and freedoms if reversion is to work as China and Britain once promised that it would.

On the other hand there is the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong, (DAB), maintaining that the soft answer will turn away China's wrath, and therefore the party best representing the "whateverists".

Given the plethora of independent candidates, especially in the functional constituencies, neither party can hope to win an outright victory. The Democrats will be doing well to win 12 seats in the 20 geographical constituencies this time around, while the DAB will be doing well to win a handful of seats for the first time.

Nevertheless, while the 60 electoral contests have been overwhelmingly dominated by parochial concerns, the two parties have posed a fundamental issue: will Hong Kong survive as part of China through standing up for itself or through sycophancy?

Hong Kong's one and only democratic exercise may give some clues as to which behavior pattern the people favor.