Seeds of Occupy Central can be found in our governance dysfunction
Carine Lai says the mass protest is, frankly, inevitable given our years of political dysfunction; the sooner Beijing realises that, the better
On Sunday afternoon, the dysfunctionality of Hong Kong’s political system came up against the pent-up resentment of its people in a dramatic confrontation that surprised the world. But if we look back in history, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that Occupy Central was the natural result of events long in the making.
The roots of the current crisis reach back to the July 1 democracy protest in 2003. Then, 500,000 people marched through the streets to oppose Article 23 national security legislation, to voice their displeasure with the Tung Chee-hwa administration and to call for universal suffrage by 2007-08. It genuinely caught Beijing off guard.
In the following months and years, Beijing moved to regain control over the pace and content of Hong Kong’s democratic reforms. In 2004, the National People’s Congress Standing Committee issued a decision quashing hopes for 2007-08. Together with the Tung administration, Beijing set in motion a lengthy and highly orchestrated public consultation process designed to lower expectations, rather than genuinely invite discussion, by ruling out options and imposing additional conditions on reform.
In 2007, the NPC ruled that the earliest date for universal suffrage would be 2017. At the time, it must have seemed a safe distance away.
Rereading the consultation papers on constitutional development is an exercise in mental contortionism – they are full of assertions that changes can only be made as long as they do not actually change anything. Reforms could not “affect the substantive power of appointment of the chief executive by the central authorities”, meaning that already, by 2005, there were hints the nomination process for the election would be strictly controlled.
It was further argued that any reforms must ensure that “the balanced participation of all sectors of society” (i.e. the functional constituencies) would be protected. Nor should reforms lead to increased public spending on welfare. In short, the exact features of Hong Kong’s political economy that have, in recent years, become targets of public ire were required to be preserved.
However, a lot has changed in a decade. People have grown frustrated by years of subpar governance, marked by cronyism, incompetence and lack of vision. One inept chief executive might be bad luck; three in a row signals a systemic problem.
Meanwhile, a whole generation of energetic social activists has brought a whole host of complex new issues to the table, from farmers’ rights to heritage conservation.
Hong Kong is trapped between a society that is moving forward and a political system that is frozen in time because of Beijing’s grim determination to preserve its mechanisms of influence. Under these circumstances, is it any wonder that Occupy Central emerged, or that it was met with such force?
While compromise on the nomination of chief executive candidates is highly unlikely at this point, someone in Beijing must realise that the current situation is untenable, and that what this city needs most is a government that can be trusted to place the public interest above special interests. If not, we are in for a bumpy ride.
Carine Lai is project manager at Civic Exchange
