this is BL, not JD
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THE DEMOCRACY MOVEMENT IN HONG KONG
The Joint Declaration had stipulated that the central government in Beijing would appoint the Chief Executive and the principal officials of the Hong Kong SAR, and that the exercise of the power of such appointments would be 'substantial' rather than symbolic. The Chief Executive would be elected by a grand electoral college of about 600, which would also have the power of electing one quarter of the seats in the legislature. The first government and legislature of the Hong Kong SAR would be elected by an Election Committee formed by a Preparatory Committee appointed by the Chinese National People's Congress, thus giving Beijing a large measure of control.
The new arrangements were technically an improvement on the existing system, in which the Hong Kong Governor is appointed by London and only 24 out of 56 seats in the Legislative Council are elected. But the present system is backed up by a de facto guarantee in that Hong Kong people know that their government is benevolent, that there is ample liberty and that the rule of law is observed because the colonial administration is ultimately accountable to a democratic government willing to defend freedom and the rule of law. This guarantee will disappear in 1997.
After the ratification of the Sino British Joint Declaration in December 1984, however, Chinese officials responsible for Hong Kong affairs began to hint that they would in fact prefer to see minimal change to the existing constitutional system, which they believed to be the foundation of Hong Kong's stability and prosperity. Moreover, they gave indications that a strong executive would be necessary. This position was almost identical to the one adopted by the Hong Kong conservative business community. By the spring of 1988 it had become clear that the mainstream view within the Basic Law Drafting Committee3-the body set up by the Chinese National People's Congress in 1985 to draft Hong Kong's Basic Law or constitution under Chinese administration-favoured an ‘executive-led' government for the SAR, with power concentrated in the hands of the Chief Executive.*
Though the Sino-British negotiations had generated expectations of autonomy and democracy in Hong Kong, the Chinese position soon appeared to suppress the community's demand for democracy. A survey conducted by H. C. Kuan and S. K. Lau of the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1985 indicated that only 22 per cent of respondents believed that China would genuinely let Hong Kong people administer Hong Kong. In 1988 the percentage would probably have been much lower. Because of concern over the territory's future, Hong Kong people had demonstrated a fairly high degree of acceptance of such concepts as representative government, democracy and political participation; but, up to the end of 1988, those who were committed to the cause of democracy were in fact a very small minority.
Before the massacre in Beijing on 3-4 June 1989, the Hong Kong people's confidence was largely based on the Chinese leadership's efforts to modernize China.
3. In June 1985, the Standing Committee of the Chinese National People's Congress approved the membership list of the Basic Law Drafting Committee. Members from China took up 36 seats, and community leaders in Hong Kong the remaining 23. The latter included people from different backgrounds, but predominantly from the local establishment, with a high proportion of business leaders. In the eyes of the Chinese leadership, local major capitalists certainly had an important part to play in maintaining the status quo of the territory.
4. See the Drafting Committee for the Basic Law, The Draft Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (for solicitation of opinions) (Hong Kong: the Drafting Committee for the Basic Law, Apr. 1988, 1st draft).
5. 44 per cent of the respondents indicated that they had no faith in the Chinese authorities' promise, and 34 per cent remained undecided. See Hsin-chi Kuan and Siu-kai Lau, 'The civic self in a changing polity: the case of Hong Kong', to be published in Kathleen Cheek-Milby and Miron Mushkat, eds., Hong Kong: the challenge of transformation (Hong Kong: Centre of Asian Studies, 1989).