SWB
FE/8475/A3/1
26 Jan 87
3. FAR EASTERN RELATIONS
Tension Among Hongkong Leftists After Hu Yaobang's Resignation
Hongkong 'Ming Pao' 25 Jan 87
Text of report:
Hu Yaobang's resignation from the office of General Secretary of the CCP Central Committee and the possible personnel changes in the CCP top leadership following Hu's resignation have had a moderate impact on Hongkong's left-wing group.
According to sources close to the Chinese side, the reports about Xu Jiatun belonging to the faction supporting Hu Yaobang and his position as director of Xinhua's Hongkong branch being unstable are "ridiculous". Director Xu is a supporter of reform, but he has no factional relations with Hu Yaobang.
These sources added: Director Xu is now at an advanced age, so his retirement will be no surprise. According to the original plan, some arrangements will be made at the 13th CCP national congress. However, due to the recent personnel changes in the CCP top leadership, director Xu may remain in office for a longer time in order to give the image that China's policy toward Hongkong is stable.
Although it is not very likely that personnel changes will be made in Hongkong, many people in Hongkong's left-wing group are still worried that the personnel changes in the top leadership in China may have an impact on China's policy towards Hongkong. According to general analysis, Hongkong policy is formulated and controlled personally by Deng Xiaoping, so as long as Deng remains in power, it is not very likely that the policy will change.
However, some informed people are not so optimistic. They have said that it is still necessary to wait and see whether Peking's current campaign against bourgeois liber- alisation will develop into a movement and extend its targets. The first to be affected are people in the left-wing culture, education and propaganda departments. So they are being particularly careful now. The atmosphere in these departments has been rather tense recently.
These people said: Earlier this year, Deng Xiaoping expressed his disagreement with the "three-power tripod" formula at a top-level meeting, because the copying of such a political structure from the United States would simply bring chaos to China.
In fact, Deng Xiaoping also "mentioned Hongkong" and opposed the "three- power tripod" political structure in Hongkong too. It is still not clear how much influ- ence this will have on Hongkong's current debate about its political structural reform.
In general, Hongkong people who have relations with the Chinese government all hope that the policy will not change. It is known that in private, the Xinhua Hongkong branch expressed appreciation of the remarks made by Dr Hsieh Chih-wei, a member of the Legislative Council. Commenting on Hongkong students' attitude towards the Chinese student unrest, Dr Hsieh said: "China cannot impose its socialist viewpoint on Hongkong, and Hongkong should not advocate reform inside China from its capitalist angle." It is said that the first half of this statement was appreciated.
However, China's administrative system works from top to bottom. So the sources said that the left-wing group in Hongkong are merely the "policy executors”. If Peking really changes its policy, they have no alternative but to follow the new policy. So far, however, they have not received any instructions about changing China's policy towards Hongkong.