HONG...2
Voters would first have to prove their "maturity" by turning out in enough
numbers during restricted elections in the years after 1997. Following that would come a referendum which would open the question to debate all over again.
"The British are walking away from their responsibilities," says Prof Peter
Harris, head of the political science department at the University of Hong Kong.
Like others, he faults London for waiting too long to introduce democracy to Hong
Kong, and then exerting too weak an effort to make it stick.
Britain has some strong arguments in countering such attacks - not least
that the reformers too have taken their time to enter the fray.
When British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher signed the Joint Declaration
in 1984, she was widely perceived to have rescued a good deal from a bad situation.
The inescapable fact facing negotiators was that Britain's control over the
territory expired in 1997, and China had only to wait to collect what it saw as its
birthright.
London can likewise point to Hong Kong's apparent lack of interest in
organising its own fate. Formal political groups remain in the formative stage, and
indications are that conservative groups have at least as much backing as do
liberals.
Both camps draw their support from the small upper-crust circle that makes
up the government, and efforts to raise interest on a wider scale have largely
failed.
Debates and discussion sessions on the first draft of the Basic Law last
summer drew sparse attendance, and when the liberals recently held a mock poll to test support for the territory's political options, fewer than 1,500 of more than
100,000 potential voters cast a ballot.
This apparent lack of interest often bewilders outsiders. Unlike former
colonies in Africa, Asia and the Americas, Hong Kong has not asked to be cut free of British rule. No street demonstrations pressed Thatcher into signing the accord, and there are no guerrillas in the territory's hills demanding independence.
Conservative community leaders argue that Hong Kong people are not ready to be given the vote. Sir Sze-yeung Chung, stepping down as senior member of the government's top advisory branch, suggested democracy and efficiency did not go
hand-in-hand.
A frequent argument is that people in the territory care about prosperity and stability above all, while open elections and the advent of political parties would threaten uncertainty and social ferment. Party politics, the argument goes, would inevitably give rise to a local Communist Party, which could be helped by Beijing to gain power.
Instead, the territory is to take the slow route. Direct elections are due in 1991, but only for a handful of seats in the lesser of the government's two advisory branches.
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