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China which considers modernization the most important goal of the nation and values Hong Kong's actual and potential contribution to China's modernization programme. It is probable that these two conditions will be met, but there is no guarantee that they will be met soon enough to restore the local community's
confidence.
The second condition is certainly more important, but quite beyond the Hong Kong people's control. A regime in Beijing which lacks legitimacy and is resented by the people of Hong Kong will be a serious obstacle to meaningful consultation and consensus on the development of representative government. Many Hong Kong people will consider it futile to be concerned with the issue of democracy under such circumstances and the community will be divided on whether or not to accommodate the demands of such a regime.
It is now a testing period for the democracy movement. While it has to demonstrate leadership and provide guidance, developments in China are beyond its control. The movement will have to prepare for direct elections to the Legislative Council in 1991 and 1995, and it will have to perform in the bread-and-butter issues such as public housing, medical care, transport and education. Hong Kong's public sector, however, has entered a period of consolidation in the 1980s, and will remain so in the 1990s. The rapid economic growth in the 1970s and the ambitious MacLehose administration of 1971-82 provided for a basic framework of social services for the community. Slower economic growth in the following decade, together with the natural tendency for various social service programmes to expand continuously, mean that the financial burden on the government has been increasing throughout the 1980s. It is natural for the government to reassess its commitments in various social services and cut back those that are perceived to be unnecessary or luxurious. On the other hand, the political uncertainty of the territory's future and the anticipated economic difficulties in the territory following the political turmoil in China have seriously eroded the bargaining position of the advocates for more social services and a greater redistribu- tion of wealth.
Further, the government in recent years has been reluctant to appoint members of the democracy movement to various important advisory committees. On the other hand, as the election andcomposition of the Legislative Council by 1995 will probably follow the stipulations of the Basic Law-which means that the appointed members today will all be replaced by elected members-the government is now cultivating a group of younger appointed members, who are much more active, aggressive and articulate than their predecessors in defending the government's policies. The democracy movement will probably continue as the opposition inside and outside the Legislative Council, but the resistance it encounters will strengthen, and sympathy from the mass media will be less forthcoming. While the movement's demand for more social services will remain popular, the danger is that it may have few achievements to boast of. As its members have little experience in policy-making, the movement's credibility as an alternative administration will be severely limited. 32 This limitation will be more clearly demonstrated when Stephen Cheong, Maria Tam and T. S. Lo emerge with political groups which can claim to have the implicit blessing of the Chinese authorities, the British administration and the business community. When people in Hong Kong are presented with the choice of the status quo and a radical change, they will most likely react in the same way as the electorates in Japan and
32. Margaret Ng, 'Democratic leaders have lost direction', South China Morning Post, 6 Dec. 1988.