Writing about the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Hong Kong used to be a much more sensitive subject than it is today. In the first edition of this book, it was noted that the CCP remained a subject to be avoided because its presence was still a “secret”, although one that everyone had known about for a very long time. Nowhere else in the world was there a political system where the ruling party remained an underground organisation as in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR). Twenty years after the reunification, the party has become much more visible and visibly active in Hong Kong. There should no longer be any issue to openly discuss party history, structure, policies, and activities. The party also wants Hong Kong to understand its values and outlook, which needs open discussion.
The story of the CCP and Hong Kong was one of secrecy and contradiction that goes back even before the party was founded in 1921. As a result of nineteenth-century “unequal treaties” that forced the Qing government to cede and lease territories to Britain, Hong Kong was seen merely to be under temporary British administration and China would recover the lost territory “when the time was ripe”. The Kuomintang (KMT) had thought it would recover Hong Kong after World War II but could not. After 1949, the CCP was willing to wait a long time to resolve the question of Hong Kong because it served China’s purpose to continue to live with the contradiction of claiming sovereignty but tolerating British de facto control.1 The story of the CCP in Hong Kong is the tale of how the party dealt with that contradiction. From the time of the birth of the CCP, Hong Kong served as a very useful and fairly secure haven for party members and friends to stage revolutionary and political activities, including communications, propaganda, united front activities, fundraising and intelligence gathering. Hong Kong was also a good place for the Mainland in terms of trade, loans, investments, and gifts from compatriots.
The Hong Kong question was complex because it concerned both foreign and domestic policies that required careful consideration on many fronts. In taking back Hong Kong in 1997, the CCP created the concept of “one country, two systems” (initially meant for Taiwan) to allow the HKSAR room to be different. This solution was in fact characteristic of Chinese policy since the 1920s. On regaining formal sovereignty over Hong Kong, the CCP was willing to allow the HKSAR to retain a “high degree of autonomy” for at least 50 years after 1997. In other words, the CCP sought to retain both sovereignty and the benefits arising from the status quo. However, having taken back sovereignty in 1997, the CCP also had to shoulder the responsibility of administration it entailed. The latter half of this story describes how that responsibility required the CCP to a great extent to accept capitalism and the Hong Kong way of doing things. However, while the party appreciates that Hong Kong needs to function differently from the Mainland, its basic instincts, which are Leninist in nature, make it difficult for the party apparatus not to over-extend its reach into the city’s public affairs. The sharpest point of departure between the party’s way and Hong Kong’s way arises from their different governing experience. Hong Kong’s colonial past, though authoritarian, was underpinned by the rule of law in the Western liberal tradition, whereas the Mainland’s experience stems from traditional authoritarian rule, and Leninism that gives the CCP supremacy.
From the party’s point of view, it can claim success for decolonising Hong Kong. After all, “pro-government forces” now dominate the political structure as a result of the party’s hard work in co-opting the Hong Kong elites and helping the patriotic camp to win elections so that a new political order emerged after 1997. There is a price to success however. The pro-government forces, a mixed bag, naturally want their interests to be protected, but the selfishness of some and the incompetence of others give the CCP multiple headaches. The CCP might even acknowledge in private that the pro-government forces are unruly and that Hong Kong has a dysfunctional political system dominated by corporatist vested interests that the people see as unfair. As the system was designed to give conservative forces dominance, the party should not be too surprised that the Hong Kong community continues to demand one-person-one-vote. The CCP had to rely on naked power to press home the message in 2004 through a constitutional interpretation by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (SCNPC) that Hong Kong must be more patient in achieving universal suffrage. Nevertheless, by 2007, the party indicated that it could accept one-person-one-vote for the election of the chief executive in 2017 and for the Legislative Council possibly by 2020. The important opportunity for 2017 was unfortunately lost when legislators voted the proposal down in 2015 amidst much drama on the floor of the legislature, and against the backdrop of Hong Kong society having experienced a number of major mass movements.
The CCP was not unaware that the ground was shifting in Hong Kong. In 2007, the then General Secretary of the CCP, Hu Jintao, noted in his report to the 17th National Party Congress in respect of implementing the “one country, two systems” policy that it was a “major task the party faced in running the country”. To ensure the long-term prosperity and stability in Hong Kong and Macao, he noted the party was presented with a set of “new circumstances”, which indicates that at the very top of the power structure, governing Hong Kong well had become a test of the party’s governing capability.2 The new challenge and situation was interpreted by the United Front Department to mean Hong Kong’s local problems and the many conflicts among interest groups.3 Moreover, the United Front Department clarified how the CCP saw the situation:
Since the Reunification a high degree of autonomy has been successfully implemented through “one country two systems” . . . and “Hong Kong people ruling Hong Kong”. Furthering development and a harmonious society have become a consensus of different sectors in Hong Kong society . . . However, there are new situations and problems: “One Country, Two Systems” is a brand new topic. Capitalism is practiced in Hong Kong . . . while the Mainland mainly practices socialism. There is no precedent to deal with the relationship between the two. There is no previous experience that could be referred to. Hong Kong’s economy is experiencing restructuring, and in addition, there are the impacts of incidents such as the Asian Financial Crisis and SARS. Hong Kong’s economic, social and livelihood problems are inter-related and the interests involved are relatively complex. These are all the problems that need to be addressed to maintain Hong Kong’s long-term stability. It is a test of our party’s leadership and governing capacity.4
The reference to the interrelated economic, social, and livelihood problems is a reference to the many conflicts among interest groups. In January 2008, an essay in the Central Party School’s influential publication, Study Times, revealed that to meet the challenge the party created a second governing team of Mainland cadres and government officials to manage Hong Kong affairs. The essay by Cao Erbao, then head of research of the Liaison Office—the CCP office in Hong Kong, discussed the training and deployment of the team and said that it should carry out its work in Hong Kong openly as a legitimate team.5 That was an important signal. The CCP would have to “come out” in Hong Kong, even if not yet in name (Chapter 10).
Six Phases of the CCP Story
The story of the CCP in Hong Kong can be said to have six distinct phases since 1921, when the party was established on the Mainland.
The first phase begins in 1920 with the earliest Marxist publication started by three intellectuals. Marxism’s initial attraction to them was that it seemed to offer specific ideas on how to address social problems. This phase runs from the early 1920s to 1949, when the party assumed power on the Mainland. This period includes dramatic strikes and boycotts, the story of the East River guerrillas during World War II, the spill over to Hong Kong of the bitter civil war fought between the KMT and CCP on the Mainland, and the close connection between party activities in Hong Kong and Guangdong. The CCP could have tried to take back Hong Kong after the war but it decided as a matter of strategy to leave it in British hands because it served party interests (Chapters 3 and 4).
The second phase covers the immediate period after the CCP assumed power in 1949 and up until the start of the Cultural Revolution. By the 1950s, the CCP had become Mao Zedong’s party. He had turned Marxism into the ultimate political truth. Ideology was enforced by mass political campaigns and non-believers were dealt with harshly. While land reform was imposed in Guangdong, Hong Kong became a sanctuary for those who managed to escape. This phase includes the impact of the Korean War on Hong Kong and a range of incidents that were a direct legacy of continuing conflicts between the KMT and CCP (Chapter 5).
The third phase is the decade of the Cultural Revolution between 1966 and 1976. The 1967 riots were perpetrated by CCP members in Hong Kong. What was extraordinary was Zhou Enlai’s role in protecting Hong Kong to the best of his ability because he believed in the colony’s continuing usefulness to the CCP. His efforts were the signals to the British that the 1967 riots did not have Beijing’s full backing. By the end of the riots, the CCP’s apparatus in Hong Kong was almost completely destroyed with the Hong Kong community turning away from Marxism–Maoism totally (Chapter 6).
The fourth period covers the early part of the Deng Xiaoping era. Once China decided to take back Hong Kong at the end of 1981, it was vital for the CCP to work out how it was going to resume sovereignty and create its own post-colonial establishment. The party concluded the Sino-British Joint Declaration and began to draft a post-1997 constitution for Hong Kong called the Basic Law. A senior cadre, Xu Jiatun, was sent to plan for the resumption of sovereignty. He launched a new propaganda and united front campaign in Hong Kong that targeted the tycoons and economic elites so that they could be won over to the side of the CCP and away from the departing British (Chapters 7 and 8).
The fifth phase is the post-Tiananmen period, when the CCP faced many difficulties in reviving its credibility. The party thought the British might have second thoughts about giving up Hong Kong. In the final five years of colonial rule, the CCP had to deal with the last governor of Hong Kong whose push for modest democratic reform roused suspicion that the British wanted to make post-1997 politics hard to manage for the Chinese. The local party machinery went all out to counter that “sinner for a thousand years”—Chris Patten—although it had limited success in denting the governor’s popularity with the public (Chapter 9).
The last phase deals with the first two decades of the HKSAR. Hong Kong’s post-colonial establishment—a creation of the CCP—was based on a two-prong design: first, by packing tycoons, their children, and their nominees into a political structure dominated by voting blocks of vested interest to select the chief executive and to fill half the seats of the Legislative Council; and second, to beef-up a major pro-government political party—the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB)—as well as support patriotic groups and individuals to be politically active so that they could dominate the political structure. However, the CCP has given itself the unenviable task of mediating and perpetuating their various interests. Despite the dominance of the pro-government forces, the CCP apparatus in Hong Kong failed to save the first chief executive, Tung Chee Hwa (1997–2005), who resigned before completing his second term. His successor, Donald Tsang (2005–2012), a career civil servant, was expected to do better but ended his term being even less popular than his predecessor. Worse, after he left office he was prosecuted and convicted of misconduct in public office for failure to disclose a conflict of interest. Leung Chun Ying (2012–2017), the third and least popular chief executive, became the focus of constant and intense bashing. The last chapter of this book covers the period from 1997 to 2017—the sixth phase, when the younger generations in Hong Kong created a new rhetoric of “localism” but some crossed the line of the CCP’s tolerance by calling for “self-determination” and “independence”.
Two Interwoven Issues
Dealing with capitalism
This first decade of post-1997 coincides with the start of a new century when the CCP stopped referring to itself as a “revolutionary party”.6 Instead, it practises “capitalism under CCP leadership”.7 In the past, it was the party’s job to lead the revolution. Today, it is the party’s leadership that will bring about market reform. In other words, the words and policy goals have changed, but not the supreme status of the CCP in China. Indeed, the supremacy of the party remains a key regime value (Chapter 2).
Hong Kong’s electoral design may well have given the party comfort about how to manage capitalism on the Mainland. By managing the leading capitalists, the CCP could manage capitalism. It would involve tolerating exploitation for the sake of prosperity and stability, and balancing the vested interests of various groups. Hong Kong’s constitution, the Basic Law, was designed to embed vested interests into the electoral system through subsectors and functional constituencies.
From the early 1980s, CCP leaders had to focus on how socialist China could deal with capitalist Hong Kong. Deng Xiaoping promised that Hong Kong could continue to “race horses and go dancing” after 1997. He also stressed that as long as a person supported China regaining sovereignty over Hong Kong, it did not matter what kind of belief he or she held. Feudalism and even slavery could be tolerated. In other words, socialist China was prepared to tolerate even the worst exploitation in Hong Kong under its one country, two systems principle, and that the policy would not change for 50 years. Indeed, the CCP was ready to accept inequality on the Mainland too. Deng Xiaoping had said in the 1980s that in the early days of economic reform, some people could get rich first. Two decades later, the rich had to be integrated into the party.
In 2001, Jiang Zemin promoted the idea that the party must open its door to “new classes” signalling the end of Marxist class struggle. He championed the Three Represents ideology as one of the ruling theories of the CCP to legitimise the inclusion of capitalists and private entrepreneurs into the party.8 According to official surveys, 33.9 percent of private entrepreneurs were party members in the mid-2000s; and a decade later, 40 percent of private entrepreneurs were party members.9 A probable reason why the percentage is so high is that when the state-owned enterprises were privatised in the earlier days, their leading managers and cadres frequently became the proprietors and senior executives of the repackaged corporations. In more recent times, entrepreneurs and young people join the party because it provides access and latent advantages. Thus, to an important extent, the CCP membership of the new business class reflects the CCP’s involvement in the creation of private enterprise. By 2014, the private sector produced at least two-thirds of China’s gross domestic product.10
The Mainland’s wide wealth gap between urban and rural communities became a cause for concern.11 The Three Represents ideology is meant to strengthen the CCP’s authority and legitimacy. Party leaders probably believe that through the party system they can rein in the capitalists when necessary to ensure that they are not overly exploitative. Perhaps they also believe that since the party can manage almost anything with adequate planning why not capitalism and markets too? After all, there are now millions of party members working in the private sector.12 The CCP’s united front successes in Hong Kong might have resulted in its added confidence that capitalism can be managed via managing the capitalists. Indeed, as Xu Jiatun observed, capitalists’ political inclinations usually follow their business interests and so they can be brought under control by providing the right incentives or disincentives.
The rich and poor divide in Hong Kong is now among the widest in the world.13 Beijing’s attempt in the past to maintain prosperity may well have contributed to stretching the wealth gap. When the colonial administration sought to increase welfare spending in 1995, a deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office described it thus: “It’s like a Formula One car [referring to Hong Kong] which is going to crash and kill all six million people [what additional welfare would do].”14 Tung Chee Hwa blamed the colonial administration for having increased social spending and sought to downplay his own fiscal expansion in 1998.15 By 2012, Leung Chun Ying acknowledged the wide wealth gap and made fighting poverty a key plank of his administration.
Another complaint in Hong Kong, especially during the terms of office of Tung Chee Hwa and Donald Tsang, is “business—politics collusion”, which shows the public’s doubt over how the public interest can be safeguarded when economic vested interests are embedded into the political system. The choice to co-opt mainly rich businessmen to draft the Basic Law in the 1980s and into the post-reunification ruling establishment led to their interests being given political priority. Today, the CCP faces the same dilemma as the British. Without allowing the people of Hong Kong to choose their own local leaders, who else could be found to endorse and perpetuate the political system except the business elites? The CCP essentially decided to retain the colonial system because it was a tried and tested way to maintain central control.
The HKSAR government perceived devising policy as balancing interests. When Donald Tsang ran for re-selection in 2007, his campaign materials made clear that: “I will encourage government officials to change their mindset, from that of policy formulator to that of interest coordinator.”16 In making policy, officials would coordinate “interests” above all else. Perhaps Tsang was influenced by Hu Jintao’s statement at the 17th National Party Congress that there was a “new situation” in the maintenance of the long-term stability and prosperity of Hong Kong, as well as the United Front Department’s explanation of what Hu Jintao meant. As noted earlier in this chapter, the party’s view of the “new situation” had to do with Hong Kong’s local problems and conflicting interests. The United Front Department’s explanation may have inspired Tsang to focus on interest coordination. In this light, the general public was just one stakeholder among many. Moreover, Tsang put his government’s role of coordinating interests ahead of policy formulation. In other words, his administration’s policies were interests-dependent, and the interests were those entrenched in the Hong Kong political system. Therefore, having majority support among the key political stakeholders became the deciding consideration in the formulation of government policy.17 Taking an “interest coordination” approach might be considered politically pragmatic for the HKSAR government but it prevented better policies being made and in any event it did not make politics smoother for Donald Tsang. A new phenomenon arose post-2013 for Leung Chun Ying. The Legislative Council became mired in wide and extended filibustering, preventing government business from getting done. Governance could no longer be described as “efficient”—a positive aspect that Hong Kong had previously been able to assert.
Managing elections
Since the post-1997 political system in the HKSAR includes elections and the Basic Law states the “ultimate aim” is universal suffrage, there is no way for the CCP not to manage elections. Managing elections is about who gets elected. The outcome to date has been active management of the election of the chief executive and other elections. The party’s blueprint is to ensure the chief executive is a trusted person, and that pro-government forces make up the majority in local political bodies and “anti-China” elements will not get too far. The assumption is that the “patriots” embedded in the system will support the HKSAR government.
So far, the chief executive has been someone chosen by the CCP. In direct geographical elections to the Legislative Council, the results are mixed. The pro-democracy camp captured the majority of the votes even though the proportional voting system limited the number of seats it won. In functional elections, the pro-government camp has always dominated especially in the constituencies that provide for corporate voting. However, the Article 23 legislation on national security, so important to the CCP, had to be withdrawn in 2003 under public protest. Instead, it led to the downfall of Tung Chee Hwa. Moreover, the HKSAR government does not feel it is able to practise executive-led government in the sense that it can always command enough votes in the legislature. The hodgepodge of groups that make up the pro-government coalition embodies a variety of interests that cannot be regarded as a majority party in power. Even bills that were unrelated to constitutional development failed—such as on copyright and medical council reform—due to extended filibustering in 2016. Despite the CCP’s hard work, Hong Kong became hard to govern. The proposal for the 2017 chief executive election by universal suffrage failed in 2015—but the CCP is probably not unhappy about that.
The New Political Order
A key part of taking back Hong Kong for the CCP was to build a new political order there with a set of regime values based on Beijing’s definition of “one country, two systems”. The new hegemony of beliefs and ideology had to be frequently repeated post-reunification. The people of Hong Kong seem to keep forgetting them. There are several features of this new ideology.
• Acceptance of China’s sovereignty over the HKSAR. The HKSAR is subordinate to Beijing, and a high degree of autonomy does not mean full autonomy.
• Implementation of the Basic Law, including respecting the fact that the HKSAR has an executive-led (not legislative-led) political system.
• Consideration of Beijing’s interests, views and concerns, especially as they relate to national security so as to prevent the HKSAR from being used as an anti-China base by “foreign forces”.
• The HKSAR is to be governed by “patriots” who share the regime values of the new political order.18
The chief supporters and advocates of the new political order are the business elites, rural interests, the old-time leftists, and others who have reoriented their beliefs and ideology towards China. The chief opposition consists of the pro-democracy politicians and advocates who are considered by the CCP to be steeped in Western political ideals, who want to bring full democracy to Hong Kong—a departure from how the Central Authorities see how one country, two systems should work.
The new political order and its values are rejected by the younger generations in Hong Kong. The unexpected Occupy and Umbrella Movements in 2014 galvanised the young and their Hong Kong-centric orientation (i.e., localism), which challenged not only the pro-government camp but also the traditional democrats. The young people of Hong Kong find the entire establishment outdated and disappointing. Worse, a poll in July 2016 showed one in five Hong Kong residents, especially those who were younger and better educated, preferred “independence” for Hong Kong after 2047.19 For the CCP, the ugly head of an independent Hong Kong must be quashed (Chapter 10).
“Coming Out” Party
The CCP presence in Hong Kong under British rule was hidden behind a wholesale tea company during the war years, and then sheltered from 1946 behind the curtains of a news agency. Party members have revealed that when they joined the party in the past they were taken to Guangzhou to process the formalities for admission, which required the applicant to provide detailed background information. Members’ files were kept in a two-storey building at Xiaobei Huayuan (小北花園) in Guangzhou where CCP Hong Kong had an office. As part of the initiation process, a new member would attend briefings.20 It is unclear how someone from Hong Kong joins the CCP today but there must be some similarity to the process on the Mainland, where one has to apply and be recommended to join the party, disclose personal and family information, take courses and tests, be on probation for a period of time, and pledge to implement party decisions.
Is it finally time for the CCP to “come out” in Hong Kong? After all, Li Hou of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office in Beijing has already stated in 1986 that the CCP has always been in Hong Kong.21 Yet, the only times when the CCP and its operation was discussed at some length in public prior to 1997 were during two motion debates in 1995 and 1997 in the Hong Kong Legislative Council. An assemblage of what was said then provides a useful reminder of just how many of the political elites in Hong Kong knew about the existence of the CCP but most of them did not wish to consider whether the party should operate in the open or not after reunification.22
[The] ruling party in China is the Communist Party which is represented by the Xinhua News Agency in Hong Kong . . . Is there anyone who does not know that the Chinese Communist Party’s representative organ has already been existing in Hong Kong?
Will the CCP rule over Hong Kong? If it did, it would have to go through the process of election. (Allen Lee, Liberal Party, 1995; 1997)
I find it difficult to understand why such a motion has been moved . . . unless it is to create maximum worry among already worried Hong Kong residents, the vast majority of whom have already indicated clearly their wish to stay out of politics . . . If there is a communist cell in Hong Kong . . . it apparently has not caused any instability so far. . . . (Elsie Tu, 1995)
We all know that the existence of the Communist Party . . . in Hong Kong is the result of historical development . . . this motion . . . is not justified in terms of jurisprudence. (Philip Wong, 1995)
I feel that the local people are not that afraid of the CCP. (Tam Yiu Chung, DAB-FTU, 1995)
We believe that if the Chinese Communist Party continues to carry out covert activities in Hong Kong, the confidence of the people of Hong Kong will be consequently be undermined. (Frederick Fung, Association for Democracy and People’s Livelihood, 1995)
[the] operation of the Chinese Communist Party started long time ago and has existed for a long time. Hong Kong people all know the operation and the nature of the New China News Agency . . . All along, the Chinese Communist Party has been operating in the form of an underground party in Hong Kong and its activities are not conducted openly . . . After the handover in 1997, the activities of the Communist Party will increase rather than decrease. (Anthony Cheung, Democratic Party, 1997)
to hold discussion on this topic now will . . . only confuse the public. There is nothing to worry about. (Ip Kwok Him, DAB, 1997)
We also have Chinese Communist Party members in Hong Kong. Again, so what? (David Chu, Hong Kong Progressive Alliance, 1997)
In December 1996, Tung Chee Hwa was asked how he would handle the relationship with Xinhua Hong Kong—in other words the CCP—if he were selected to be the first chief executive. Tung sidestepped the question by saying that he understood many Hong Kong people worried that Xinhua Hong Kong would become the “king of kings” in Hong Kong in future but he did not believe it would happen because the Central Government would respect one country, two systems.23
Rumours of who are party members among the post-1997 elites have been raised in Hong Kong from time to time. For example, an academic said in a seminar in Hong Kong in May 1997 that he believed there were four underground party members in Tung Chee Hwa’s then Executive Council.24 Another report noted that a political advisor to Tung was an active leftist student involved in the riots in 1967 and a party member.25 There was yet another report that claimed that the then Secretary for Justice, and a member in the Central Policy Unit, were also local CCP members.26 Questions were asked directly of Tsang Yok Sing, a founding member and former chairman of the DAB, and president of the Legislative Council (2008–2016), whether he was a party member. His answer is illuminating as to how the CCP likely sees its place in Hong Kong society:
In fact, since the founding of the DAB, I have been asked [whether I am a CCP member] many times . . . I can say frankly, I have never answered this question. The reason is, Hong Kong people’s attitude to the concept of the Communist Party is very negative. (South China Morning Post, 8 October 2008)27
On being asked whether he was a CCP member: “I am so disappointed that you asked me about this. It is only a small issue. It is no big deal.” (South China Morning Post, 4 February 2009)28
Indeed, Hong Kong people have known about the existence of the CCP in Hong Kong for a long time and are desensitised to the party’s involvement in local politics probably because they know they must accept it. Part and parcel is the known fact that the nation is a one-party state. A survey conducted by the Hong Kong Transition Project in 2007 (see Appendix I) for the first edition of this book showed that there was 44 percent overall satisfaction with the Chinese government ruling China as a whole. Veteran NPC member Ng Hong Man’s assessment was that many Hong Kong people thought positively about the Chinese economy and China’s rising global status, but they disapproved of the widespread corruption and the lack of personal liberty and democracy on the Mainland.29 As regards the CCP and Hong Kong, 47.1 percent of the survey respondents believed the CCP understood Hong Kong people’s views while 41.2 percent did not think so. The rest were unable to offer a view. The responses also showed Hong Kong people knew the CCP influenced Hong Kong political affairs quite substantially:
Concern about CCP interference in Hong Kong affairs: 50.9 percent of the respondents said they were not worried about CCP interference in Hong Kong affairs, while 36.2 percent ranged from slightly worried to somewhat worried. There were 9.9 percent who were very worried, and 3.1 percent who did not know.
CCP influence over HKSAR government: 12.5 percent felt there was a great deal of interference, 39.1 percent felt the CCP was “somewhat” interfering, 20.2 percent thought interference was “not so much” while 7.2 percent thought there was no interference from the party; 18.3 percent were unable to express a view.
One aspect of the 2007 survey that deserves highlighting still is about party membership in Hong Kong. The majority of the respondents preferred not to know.
CCP membership declaration: On being asked whether CCP membership in Hong Kong should be declared, 36.1 percent of the respondents supported transparency and 2.8 percent thought declaration should be made in the future. However, 46.8 percent felt things should “continue as they are”—that is for party membership not to be declared. Of the remaining respondents, 1.5 percent thought the subject was “too sensitive”, while 12.7 percent did not know.
A survey in 2016 asked respondents on their level of trust in the Chinese government as part of a survey on Hong Kong’s political development. Answers were given on a scale from 0 to 10 (0 being no trust at all; 10 being having total trust; and 5 being so-so). The largest group was level 5 (22.5 percent), followed by level 0 (18.5 percent), with an overall mean of 4.36.30
The CCP had obviously discussed how it should function in Hong Kong post-1997. Xu Jiatun, who was the head of the party in Hong Kong from 1983 to 1990, noted that:
After 1997, the leading organ of the Work Committee [i.e., CCP] should exist openly. But the grassroots organisations of the party should continue to play a secret role. Moreover the Work Committee should be separated from [Xinhua Hong Kong] and be renamed the Hong Kong Region Work Committee. It should be run openly. However, after the return of sovereignty over Hong Kong to China, it is unreasonable that the Communist Party, the ruling party of China, will still be an underground party in Hong Kong whose activities are regarded as unlawful. Since the DAB was formed, we can arrange for all or a large number of members of the underground party to join the DAB to preserve their roles as party members, and the DAB’s platform will be their programme of action. All in all, this sensitive issue within the party and the society of Hong Kong must be discussed and resolved now, as 1997 is approaching.31
Xu Jiatun’s view was understandable—when Hong Kong would become Chinese territory, the ruling party should no longer demean itself by functioning as an underground party. Nevertheless, he envisaged grassroots organisations of the CCP would continue to play a secret role post-1997. If the party were to operate openly, but its grassroots bodies, such as trade unions, youth groups, and women’s groups, would not reveal themselves as party organs, then in effect only some party members would acknowledge their party membership while allowing others to continue to hide it. Xu’s views were prescient. It would prove to be the case (Chapter 10).
The underground nature of the CCP in Hong Kong arose out of complicated history. Prior to reunification it suited both the British and Chinese sides to keep a veil drawn over the existence of the CCP in Hong Kong. Hong Kong was British territory to the British and Chinese territory to the Chinese. The situation was made more difficult by the KMT and its past activities in the colony. Yet, Hong Kong was not torn apart by the longstanding conflicts between the KMT and CCP, and between China and the Western powers. Quiet accommodations were reached. Official silence on the part of the British about the CCP was one notable example of omissions that were considered necessary prior to 1997 in order to hold the colony together. The attempt to raise the subject for discussion in the Legislative Council in 1995 and 1997 ran into a complete stonewall from the colonial administration, and at the same time caused the leftist camp to go into almost hysterical overdrive. The veil of silence made it impossible, or at least extremely awkward, to say anything about the party in Hong Kong prior to 1997. However, this habit has extended beyond 1997 to the reunified HKSAR.
Omissions and evasions have taken a toll on public discourse. Perhaps it could be said in the past that to acknowledge and talk about the ideological contradictions running through Hong Kong in public was to revive them but with the colonial era having ended more than two decades ago, it cannot possibly still be so. On the Mainland, CCP leadership is pervasive. The party is embedded throughout the Chinese government structure and the management of state-owned enterprises, as well as many other types of mass institutions, such as trade unions and universities. It should be entirely appropriate for Hong Kong people to openly discuss party policies towards the HKSAR and how the party operates in Hong Kong. It is no secret that the CCP carries out extensive propaganda and united front work in Hong Kong, and that it has a large structure that is coordinated and led today by the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the HKSAR (Liaison Office). It is well-organised, well-funded, and politically active, including in elections. The people of Hong Kong know the CCP is there wielding considerable day-to-day influence in the affairs of the HKSAR government.
The CCP releases figures from time to time on membership so we know there are nearly 90 million members in total by 2016. However, since the party is an underground organisation in Hong Kong, there is no authoritative information on the number of party members there. In the mid-1980s, there were apparently about 6,000 members according to Xu Jiatun with about half being local members from Hong Kong and the rest from the Mainland.32 According to other sources, figures in the region of 15,000 and 28,000 had been suggested for the period around 1997.33 Yet another estimate was that between 1983 and 1997, some 83,000 Mainland officials with changed names and false identities have entered Hong Kong as part of a covert scheme to groom a political force in Hong Kong so as to promote Beijing’s long-term interests. The logic of creating this fifth column was described to have emanated from Beijing’s “underlying fears, suspicion and distrust” (Chapter 9).34 Whatever may be the true number of party members in Hong Kong, the number is likely to be rather large by now. Perhaps this is why nearly 47 percent of the respondents to the 2007 survey mentioned above preferred not to know: because they realised they might find the truth disconcerting.
This is precisely the issue. Continuing to operate the CCP in Hong Kong in secret can only cause unnecessary discomfort. Hong Kong people already accept the CCP’s undoubted authority in leading the affairs of state. What Hong Kong people want is the party’s willingness to enable Hong Kong to function with a high degree of autonomy including being able to pursue and achieve the “ultimate aim” of universal suffrage provided for in the Basic Law. For nearly four decades now, Hong Kong people have come to see the pursuit of greater democracy as an important way to guarantee their freedoms, sustain open government, and underpin good governance. The executive-led system based on functional elections is not seen to be able to deliver good governance. The essential issue between Hong Kong and Beijing lies at the crux of how the party sees these goals can be achieved.
The CCP had promoted universal suffrage in its early days. However, its view today is that democracy could spell the end of one-party rule and also throw China into chaos, as politicians resort to social and ethnic divisions to mobilise votes. Beyond losing elections, the party elites are biased against the working and peasant classes, who would have a good chance to win power under the Western “bourgeois” model of universal suffrage, but workers and peasants are considered unsuitable to hold power because they are poorly educated. Matters are further complicated by the Mainland’s historical experience. On occasions when the CCP has allowed public discussion of its performance, the people’s negative reaction had been too uncomfortable to bear, such as during the Hundred Flowers Campaign, and the brief Democracy Wall period. Deng Xiaoping tried to rationalise the hostility to democracy on the grounds of the low educational standards of the nation—which he then applied to Hong Kong in a well-known speech.35
Chinese leaders do not regard liberal democracy as the path for China. In fact, they see their success since the 1980s as demonstration that authoritarian regimes can be effective in improving people’s lives and the CCP has earned performance legitimacy. They see the rise of China is a great unfolding drama led by the party, and that economic growth has to be coupled with active diplomacy to transform Chinese power and influence around the world. Hong Kong was extremely important to China in the 1980s and 1990s, when it was the crucial gateway for trade, capital, and investment but that dependency has dropped significantly. Today, CCP leaders feel they need to assert and repeat the party’s values and regime outlook in Hong Kong and to stamp out talk about self-determination and independence, lest such dangerous ideas stoke similar ones elsewhere in the country. They also wish to show their tolerance has limits. To the younger generations in Hong Kong, whose values are liberal, the party’s rhetoric and values are unattractive. They are dissatisfied with unfair politics. They hope for a sign that the political system can be revamped—so that there can be better policies for society to progress. As the vast majority of Hong Kong people accept Hong Kong is a part of the People’s Republic of China, and the noise of self-determination and independence will likely die down, the CCP will still have to face the question of the efficacy of the current political system that has entrenched certain vested interests and whether that can promote good governance, social equity, and a competitive economy in Hong Kong.
1. For a summary of the contradiction, see Kevin P. Lane, Sovereignty and the Status Quo, pp. 5–9.
2. Hu Jintao’s Work Report, 17th National Party Congress, section X, Carrying Forward the Practice of “One Country, Two Systems” and Advancing the Great Cause of Peaceful National Reunification, http://www.china.org.cn/english/congress/229611.htm#10.
3. 中央統戰網，〈如何理解保持香港澳門長期繁榮穩定是我們黨治國理政面臨的嶄新課題（專題）〉，《第二十次全國統戰工作會議》, 3 June 2008, http://wztz.66wz.com/system/2008/06/03/100559627.shtml.
4. Ibid.
5. Subsequent to the publication of Cao Erbao’s essay, the Sing Tao Daily appeared to have been the only Hong Kong media organisation to have reported on it: 紀曉華，〈管治力量一分為二〉，《星島日報》, 1 February 2008. The next time the issue was publicly addressed was on 16 April 2009, Christine Loh, “One City, Two Teams”, South China Morning Post, before many more news and commentary pieces had begun to appear.
6. In 2002, at the 16th Party Congress, the CCP formally redefined its status as the “party in power” and no longer as a “revolutionary party”, which was how it had always described itself.
7. Wei Pan, “Crossing the River: Legalism, Reform, and Political Change”, Harvard International Review, p. 42.
8. In 2002, the Chinese Constitution was amended to add in the ideology of the Three Represents.
9. Kellee S. Tsai, “China’s Complicit Capitalists”, Far Eastern Economic Review, p. 15; and David Goodman, “Why China’s Middle Class Supports the Communist Party”, Huffington Post, 2013.
10. Huang Yasheng’s central argument in Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics is that since the 1990s, the development model favoured rapid urban development, which in turn favoured creating massive state-owned enterprises and big foreign multinational corporations, leaving rural and private enterprise starved of funds that became a limit to their growth. By 2014, Nicholas Lardy concluded in Markets over Mao: The Rise of Private Business in China that the private sector produced two-thirds of China’s GDP.
11. Since economic liberalisation in the late 1970s, China has grown astonishingly, raising 660 million people out of poverty but the fruits of the growth have not been widely shared across society; Serhan Cevik and Caroline Correa-Caro, “Growing (Un)equal: Fiscal Policy and Income Inequality in China and BRIC+”, International Monetary Fund, March 2015.
12. Kellee S. Tsai, “China’s Complicit Capitalists”, Far Eastern Economic Review, p. 15.
13. The number of poor households in Hong Kong reached 460,000 in 2015. Wealth disparity in Hong Kong is now worse than other developed regions in the world; Oxfam Hong Kong, “Local Wealth Inequality Worsens as Richest Earn 29 Times More Than Poorest”, 11 October 2016, http://www.oxfam.org.hk/en/news_5160.aspx.
14. Statement by Chen Zuoer, November 1995, see Fanny W. Y. Fung and Albert Wong, “Veteran Head of HK and Macau Office Steps Down after 14 years”, South China Morning Post, 9 April 2008, quoting various statements from him.
15. Stephen Brown, Edward Fung, Christine Loh, Kylie Uebergang, and Steve Xu, The Budget and Public Finance in Hong Kong, pp. 6–10.
16. Donald Tsang, My Declaration Speech: Building a New Hong Kong, Creating Quality Life Together, 1 February 2007.
17. For a discussion about the policy assumptions of the Donald Tsang administration, see Christine Loh and Carine Lai, Reflections of Leadership, pp. 189–90.
18. Lau Siu-kai has an expanded list of ten features, see “In Search of a New Political Order”, in Yue-man Yeung, The First Decade, pp. 140–41.
19. Almost one in five people in Hong Kong, especially younger people, preferred independence after 2047; Public Opinion and Political Development in Hong Kong, Survey Result, Press Release, Centre for Communication and Public Opinion Survey, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 24 July 2016.
20. 〈中共在港地下黨大老〉，《開放雜誌》，November 2008.
21. Emily Lau, “Where’s the Party?”, Far Eastern Economic Review, 12 June 1986, p. 16.
22. The debates were both raised by the author, when she was a member of the Legislative Council. The quotes are from the Official Proceedings of the Legislative Council, 26 April 1995, pp. 3317–46; and 5 March 1997, pp. 164–84.
23. Yu Kwok-chun asked Tung Chee Hwa, “If you became the Chief Executive of the HKSAR, what would your relationship be with Xinhua?” Tung replied, “Xinhua is one of the Central Authorities’ organisations in Hong Kong. Other than Xinhua, there will also be the PLA and Foreign Ministry in Hong Kong. I will communicate with them in this regard and will frequently stay in touch with them. For Xinhua’s scope of work, I think the Central Authorities will define it. I will surely communicate with them. I know the Chief Executive of the HKSAR is accountable to the Central People’s Government. I know that you and many other people would like to know if Hong Kong would have a ‘king of kings’ in the future. I know that Hong Kong will not have such a ‘king of kings’ because the Central Authorities, Hong Kong and everyone will definitely implement ‘One Country, Two Systems’ and a ‘high degree of autonomy’, as well as act according to the Basic Law”, Wen Wei Po, 27 November 1996.
24. The four rumoured underground CCP members were the DAB-FTU’s Tam Yiu Chung (譚耀宗), Leung Chun Ying (梁振英), Antony Leung (梁錦松), and the Hong Kong Progressive Alliance’s Chung Shui Ming (鍾瑞明);《開放雜誌》, May 1997, p. 54.
25. 牛虻，〈從反英暴動到紅頂商人—左派社團「學友社」的一段歷史〉，《開放雜誌》，February 1997, p. 50.
26. These two rumoured CCP members were Elsie Leung (梁愛詩), the then Secretary for Justice, and Tsang Tak Shing (曾德成), then a consultant to the Central Policy Unit and later the Secretary for Home Affairs; 童行，〈董建華身邊的港共名單〉，《開放雜誌》，August 2003, p. 38.
27. Albert Wong, “DAB’s Tsang Still Silent on Communist Membership”, South China Morning Post, 8 October 2008.
28. Yau Chui-yan, “Voice of Reason”, South China Morning Post, 4 February 2009.
29. 吳康民，〈共產黨形象全是負面嗎？〉，Ming Pao, 13 October 2008.
30. Public Opinion and Political Development in Hong Kong, Survey Result, Press Release, Centre for Communication and Public Opinion Survey, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 24 July 2016.
31. 許家屯，《許家屯香港回憶錄（上、下冊）》（香港：香港聯合出版社，1993）。This is referenced from here on as Xu Jiatun, Memoirs, p. 470.
32. Xu Jiatun, Memoirs, p. 69.
33. In a footnote to “Beijing’s Fifth Column and the Transfer of Power in Hong Kong: 1993–1997”, in Robert Ash, Hong Kong in Transition, p. 129, Yin Qian noted that Jonathan Mirsky, East Asia editor of The Times (London), told him that the information leaked by a friend in the pre-Handover Special Branch indicated that there were 23,000–28,000 party members in Hong Kong. There he also quoted a smaller estimate from Willy Wo-lap Lam of about 15,000.
34. Ibid., pp. 113–14.
35. Deng Xiaoping,〈中國不允許亂〉, 4 March 1989,《鄧小平文選第三卷》. http://web.peopledaily.com.cn/deng/.