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THE DEMOCRACY MOVEMENT IN HONG KONG
generation of middle-class intellectuals, hoping to supervise and criticize the government through objective research and to exert pressure on the government by influencing public opinion."
From 1982 to 1985, concern for the future of the territory and the challenge posed by the development of representative government contributed to the organization and development of many political groups and grassroots pressure groups. Their development was further facilitated by the District Board elections and Legislative Council elections of 1985. Middle-class political groups were prompted to develop their organizations at grassroots level and to establish close ties with the grassroots pressure groups. At the same time they became concerned with local social issues and took part in the related campaigns for citizens' rights. This process contributed to the expansion of almost all political groups and provided the basis for a territory-wide movement for democracy.
1985-8: decline
In the second half of the 1980s, however, the process stagnated. Members of the middle-class political groups had become preoccupied with their plans for emigration. They were largely professionals who had the means to emigrate, and their political sensitivity and feeling for freedom and democracy had made them pessimistic about the future of Hong Kong. As a result the democracy movement became increasingly dominated by a small core of organizers and activists who performed well in electoral campaigns and mass rallies. But without a broad base of successful middle-class professionals, the movement experienced some difficulty in winning the trust of the business groups or respectability within the community.
After late 1987, it seemed that the democracy movement also failed to mobilize sufficient numbers of competent writers and speakers to explain its position to the public via the media. On the other hand, the wealth of the conservative business community enabled it to employ prestigious public relations firms to manage its propaganda and image. The democracy movement's best chance of finding an effective voice at the end of 1988 lay in exploiting the media and mobilizing working-class people circumscribed by lack of resources. This was in fact reflected in the failure of the three main political groups in the movement-Meeting Point, the Hong Kong Affairs Society and the Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood-to expand their memberships. The group most oriented to the middle class, the Hong Kong Affairs Society, was hardest hit.
The small group of intellectuals who backed the cause of democracy in the territory and who were influential in the local media gradually lost enthusiasm for the cause in the second half of the 1980s. Some dropped out because of pessimism and a sense of helplessness in view of the pressure from Beijing. But many of them turned their attention elsewhere. There were groups who planned to maintain their role as critics overseas, believing that freedom of speech and of the press would become increasingly
7. See Hong Kong Observers, Pressure points (Hong Kong: Summerson (HK) Educational Research Centre, 1983), enlarged and updated edn.
8. Meeting Point was formed in late 1982 and is led by Yeung Sum, a lecturer in social work at the University of Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Affairs Society was established in 1984 and is headed by Albert Ho, a liberal lawyer. The Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood emerged in 1986 as an amalgamation of a number of smaller political groups; its leaders are Lee Wing Tat, a secondary school teacher, and Fung Kim Kee, an activist with the public housing lobby. At best each group can only claim to have 200-300 active members.