Simmering Dissidence in Hong Kong

...Whatever the case, big business here seems destined to retain its elite position—although foreign businesses may gradually find their interests submerged beneath those of the new order...

...On the other hand, there is no denying that for the bulk of the 6.3 million Hong Kongers the primary issue at the moment is conducting business as usual—or perhaps even more profitably than before...

...Chief Executive Tung has repeatedly appealed to the nationalist instincts of Hong Kong Chinese...

...Before its passage, the authorities merely had to be given "notification" of planned demonstrations...

...Indeed, critics of the authorities warn against being deceived by their takeover-week posture...

...But that was as far as the gift went...

...The most significant reminder of British rule, though, is the Legislative Council building, a weathered late-19thcentury granite structure that squats opposite the soaring steel-and-glass Bank of China on the other side of the square...

...So long as the foreign reporters and TV cameras were on hand, it is said, no one was about to upset things by driving Lee from the Legco balcony or breaking up the march of several thousand demonstrators through central Hong Kong to the government complex...

...More will undoubtedly arrive, largely unpublicized, over the next few months...

...From the entrance to the Star Ferry, whose fleet continues to churn the waters between Kowloon and Hong Kong Island, the Mandarin Hotel—for a long time the colony's fanciest hostelry, but now merely one of the top dozen or so— still looks as it did in the old days...

...The sympathies of many local cops notwithstanding, the Police Department has already stressed there will be strict enforcement...

...The law represents a major departure...

...Could it be that eventually China's South will become too rich for the rest of the country...

...Nowhere did he mention the benefits of Communism, perhaps because theoretically they have nothing to do with Hong Kong...

...Southern China already is a hotbed of the kind of capitalism that Hong Kong venerates...

...Considering how critical Lee has been of Beijing's refusal to countenance Legco, and of its appointing instead a puppet Provisional Legislature, his invitation to the official handover ceremonies appeared to be a gesture of reconciliation...

...He promised to "monitor" the work of the Provisional Legislature and criticize it publicly whenever it "does anything that would be prejudicial to the people of Hong Kong.' "My party will never say die," Lee said to me in an interview...

...And their inspiration is likely to be derived more from bribery and gift-giving, endemic throughout China in the current era of "pragmatism," than from any infusions of ideology...

...Several days after his post-midnight appearance on the Legco building balcony, Lee and 18 cohorts from the old Council outlined their strategy for a prolonged campaign against Hong Kong's Provisional Legislature: The Democratic Party will assume "shadow party" status until Beijing relents—or sends Lee and his allies to jail...

...Instinctively, I searched not for signs of Chinese rule, but for relics of a generation ago—rococo colonial-style edifices that might somehow have escaped the wrecking ball...

...Could a revolt in Hong Kong turn into a broader rebellion far more difficult to suppress than that of the unarmed liberals who turned out on Tiananmen Square in 1989...

...As one of the legislators who was thrown out by the new regime, Lee Cheuk Yan further emphasized that his Confederation will fight to save a labor law passed by the old Legislative Council in its final days...

...In these circumstances Martin Lee has had to demonstrate that his Democrats are more than a fringe band of malcontents out to spoil the party...

...Authorities blame the Democratic Party and the Hong Kong Alliance for the embarrassing annual protests held here since then...

...The irony of life in Hong Kong under Communist rule is its total dedication to capitalism, underscored by the designation of hard-line capitalists to run the place...

...The Legislative Council, or Legco, has emerged as the main battleground of the transition from British to Chinese Communist rule...

...Patten's great gift took the form of allowing one-third of the 60seat Legco to be elected directly...

...The fervor, the spirit of Hong Kong could spread as well into Shenzen, Guangzhou (formerly Canton) and beyond...

...In promising to "continue the fight for Hong Kong," Lee has set the stage for bitter confrontation with Chinese Communist rule...

...He denounced as "a joke" Chief Executive Tung's promise that new elections for a nonprovisional legislature will be held next spring...

...The law provides for collective bargaining, sheer anathema to the pro-Beijing tycoons who today run Hong Kong...

...This struggle is all about power and money—and how to maintain Hong Kong as a lucrative source of income without letting its spirit of dissent undermine the leadership in Beijing the way the Tiananmen Square demonstrations very nearly succeeded in doing eight years ago...

...Of the remaining 40 seats, 30 were again filled by "functional constituencies"—that is, doctors, lawyers, etc., voting for one of their own group—and 10 were chosen by members of 19 district boards...

...They could afford to postpone the crackdown until later...

...Signboards denouncing President Jiang and Prime Minister Li Peng were simply ignored...

...Along with the hard currency and corruption of capitalism, the disease of democracy may spread...

...In fact, it is safe to assume the Provisional Legislature in the course of scrutinizing all the "old laws,' will do away with anything designed to improve the lot of workers...

...Nor were he and his supporters the only protesters on hand...

...Now these require advance permission and can be relegated to obscure venues—or banned altogether if they are viewed as troublesome...

...The message of men like Martin Lee and Lee Cheuk Yan may resonate among both intellectuals and workers in nearby cities and zones...

...In a typical speech, he called on them to show "the passion, the pride of being Chinese, and the constant readiness to contribute to China...

...There is no doubt we will come back," says Lee, whose bloc in the old Legco, despite falling just short of a majority, was the largest and most outspoken...

...Upon reaching the Legco building he walked to the second floor balcony and, flanked by other Democratic Party members who had lost their seats at the stroke of midnight, began orating and leading the crowd in chants of "Long Live Democracy...

...Second, it will introduce a "proportional" system guaranteeing a specific percentage of seats to the losers, thereby preventing the opposition from securing a majority in the Legislature even if it wins the popular vote...

...Night after night of festivities, ranging from rock concerts to fireworks over the harbor, were considered enough to distract public attention from the shrillest opponents...

...They have made it clear that they will try to suppress them with the 4,700 troops rushed here at dawn on July 1. The armored cars streaming across the frontier no doubt reminded everyone of the tanks and armored cars that stormed Tiananmen Square...

...Immediate differences were minimal...

...But the dissidents in Hong Kong are not likely to die out...

...WITH THE DEPARTURE of the 8,000-odd journalists who came to cover the occasion and tended to devote a paragraph or sound bite to the protests, the world will no doubt soon forget them...

...Lee and Lau thus did their best to annoy and embarrass the new rulers on what was otherwise a glorious 24 hours for Beijing...

...The main tool for controlling dissent is expected to be a new law on subversion, which will arm authorities with the excuse to go after almost anyone they don't like...

...The Chinese flags flying from hotel doorways, ships and government buildings where the Union Jack had flown the day before were less than frightening...

...Across the border in the new city of Shenzen, a special economic zone that has risen in the past 20 years as a hurly-burly adjunct to Hong Kong, lurk additional thousands of troops too, ready to move in and clamp down at the first signs that the restive mood of Martin Lee and company is turning revolutionary But Beijing may also face quite a different problem...

...The biggest change since I came to know this place has been the rise of what is among the world's most impressive skylines...

...Donald Kirk, a longtime NL contributor, writes frequently on Asian affairs...

...Lee was anything but reconciled, however...

...He is currently completing a book about United States relations with the Philippines...

...One imposing architectural marvel after another testifies to Hong Kong's ever-growing role as a freewheeling port and financial center...

...In the end the return of Hong Kong, a fishing village at the time the British acquired it 156 years ago, may present Beijing with more dangers than benefits...

...The fight actually began in 1995 when the last British governor, Christopher Patten, insisted on bequeathing a vague semblance of democracy to a people accustomed for more than a century and a half to the benefits of benevolent dictatorship...

...The Police will take necessary measures to handle any contravention of the law," an official statement announced after halfa-dozen inspectors resigned in protest from the force...

...Lee had just attended the grand dinner where Prince Charles, Patten, China's President Jiang Zemin, and the man named to the new post of Hong Kong Chief Executive, Tung Chee Hwa, all spoke—a carefully orchestrated event that seemed more like a staged pageant than a real-life historical moment...

...Nevertheless, Legco in its final incarnation was not altogether the rubber stamp it had previously been...

...Patten may in fact have planted a seed, if not for democracy, then for long-term dissidence against Beijing rule...

...To a considerable degree, they will set the agenda for this special administrative region's evolution as a capitalist enclave serving the mainland's interests...

...For while the policy of "one country, two systems" propounded by the late Deng Xiaoping grants more freedom of speech to Hong Kongers than to other Chinese, it specifically does not extend to questions about the legitimacy of China's rule over the former British colony or, for that matter, over Tibet or Taiwan...

...That Hong Kong might become the site of another Tiananmen is not a farfetched notion...

...On the contrary, they will probably gain adherents and could develop into a slowly simmering democracy movement similar to the one that launched the Tiananmen Square sit-in in May 1989...

...Dissent began the night of the "handover," as the change in power is called here, when the leader of Hong Kong's Democratic Party, Martin Lee, arrived at the Legco building to fire up a rally proclaiming the right of the elected Legislative Council to serve out the final two years of its term...

...Living standards there far exceed those in most of the rest of the mainland...

...For their part, Hong Kong's new leaders have fallen back on oldtime nationalism in promoting their policies, whether capitalist or Communist...

...Be that as it may, the present mood of the ousted legislators is one of unremitting defiance in the face of subtle threats...

...Neither is it in the cards that the new rulers will respect the right of Hong Kongers to memorialize the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre — an anniversary Lee and others have chosen each year for an outburst of anti-Beijing sentiment on Statue Square...

...First, it will expand the choosing of representatives by functional constituencies, since such groups are easily cowed...

...As Hong Kong prospers, so does the entire region...

...He contends that Beijing acted "illegally" in throwing out the elected legislators and appointing new ones...

...We already have the hearts and minds of the people," he adds, pointing to the fact that he and his followers were the top votegetters in 1995...

...Private armies, warlords, criminal gangs are all part of China's history...

...We exercised our rights under British rale, and we will continue to do so...

...Right beside it Statue Square, with its memorial to British and Hong Kong war dead, survives...

...The People's Liberation Army soldiers on duty at the Prince of Wales barracks, once the local base of British military power, did not appear threatening...

...Memories of 1989 live on here in a way not permitted anywhere on the Chinese mainland—and may soon be suppressed here too...

...Then he went on to suggest two ways Beijing is certain to prevent the Democratic party from holding more than a few seats...

...The next morning it was Hong Kong, China, a special administrative region that owed its loyalty to Beijing...

...Lee's argument is simple...

...We will defy this sort of abusive law," insists Lee Cheuk Yan, General Secretary of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions and spokesman for the Hong Kong Alliance, an umbrella group of dissidents...

...Lee also told me that he and his supporters would hold demonstrations in defiance of a "public order" law passed by the Provisional Legislature early on July 1, just hours following the handover...

...Emily Lau, leader of a much smaller opposition group known as the Frontier Party, staged her own demonstration: After she and her followers wrapped a yellow ribbon around the entire building, they paraded through central Hong Kong...

...When all of this summer's celebrations are a dim memory, Beijing's leaders may find that they bit off more than they could swallow...

...Chief Executive Tung salvaged his shipping empire with the help of loans from Beijing, and his local friends and allies are captains of the Chinese business community with ties to the mainland...

...It is very clear the central government in Beijing wishes to control the electoral method," he declared...

...We continue to condemn this as illegitimate," he told foreign reporters, repeating a theme that is almost a slogan for him...

...The two flew into Hong Kong for the big ceremony, then back up to Beijing for more speechfests and celebrations, declaring July 1 an annual national holiday...