China is telling Hong Kong how things really stand regarding that messy democracy stuff: forget it, and just go back to making money. As long as Beijing gets its cut and there's not too much of that freedom claptrap, all will be well. Otherwise...well, Hong Kong hungers for democracy, but it hasn't forgotten 10,000 dead and wounded protesters in 1989 at Tiananmen Square either.
A warning from Beijing that it would intervene if democrats gain control of Hong Kong in this year's limited elections has sent tremors through political circles in the territory.China has made it clear that it has no intention of allowing Hong Kong to move to fully elected government. The message is being interpreted as meaning that Beijing regards most of Hong Kong's opposition politicians - and the half-million people who demonstrated against a draconian security law last July - as "unpatriotic" and therefore not fit to rule.
After Hong Kong's Beijing-appointed chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa, withdrew the security bill in the face of massive popular unease, attention turned to a promised review of Hong Kong's basic law or constitution for broadening the voting franchise in 2007, the 10th anniversary of the handover from British rule.
Beijing's muted response to the security law rebuff encouraged hopes of flexibility on the part of China's recently appointed generation of leaders around President and Communist Party chief Hu Jintao. The appointment of fifth-ranking party leader and Vice-President Zeng Qinghong to head Beijing's top policy committee on Hong Kong added to the optimism. Mr Zeng has a track record of effective diplomacy with the US and other democracies.
This optimism has now been shattered. Mr Tung is looking even more a lame-duck leader out of touch with Hong Kong's increasingly politicised 7 million people. And elections in August for the territory's parliament - the Legislative Council, known as the "Legco" - could worsen the divergence between Beijing and Hong Kong if democrats increase their representation.
In a briefing for selected pro-Beijing journalists in Hong Kong on Sunday, a senior Chinese official is said to have warned that Beijing might use emergency powers to dissolve the Legco if democrats won control.
"I have a sword," the official said, quoted in the Beijing-controlled paper Wen Wei Po on Monday. "Normally, I would not use it. Now it is the democrats who force me to use it."
Remember, these are the folks whose military is headed to the Moon before we do, if they can just pull it off, with the profits from billions in sales to Wal-Mart.
Posted by Alan at February 19, 2004 01:25 AM