-4-
8.
The Joint Declaration changed Hong Kong. The clock, which many people up to then had chosen to ignore, started ticking ever more audibly. In the first few years of my time here as Governor, no day passed without a newspaper, the radio or a visitor to my office (and usually all three) referring to 1997 and concern that some aspect of the life of Hong Kong would be changed. By one of those quirks of the collective consciousness, this phenomenon has changed somewhat over the past year. With the time gap lessening, there is both an increasing acceptance of the inevitable reality of 1997 and a greater focussing on specific issues to be dealt with, rather than more generalised, somewhat amorphous, worries. As the history of the past few decades has frequently shown, Hong Kong has a remarkable ability to become obsessed by particular issues and problems and then to surmount them.
9.
With the transfer of sovereignty in 1997 getting ever closer, the most notable changes in Hong Kong are the increased politicisation of the task of administration and the growing involvement of China in all aspects of the territory's life. Politicisation comes both from a more assertive Legislative Council itself a natural consequence of bringing in directly elected members and moving to an overall elected majority in 1991 - and the positioning of different elite groups for 1997.
10.
Political life in the territory remains in its infancy. The political groups which have emerged recently are mostly loose associations of like-minded individuals with very little in the way of a thought-out political platform. The majority of the population remains politically apathetic: only some 20% of those entitled to vote turned out at the first direct elections to the Legislative Council last year. The only group with a coherent organisational structure and some form of party manifesto (although few have read it) is the United Democrats led by Mr Martin Lee. They came out best in the elections (with the support of about 10% of the potential voting population, although about half of those who actually voted). Many of those who voted for them clearly voted for people who would act as critics of the administration, rather than in an expectation or hope that they would take over the running of the government which, given the Hong Kong system, is seen as a fixed star in the firmament.