their view contravened earlier Sino-British understandings
expressed in the Joint Declaration, the Basic Law and the
exchanges of letters on directly elected seats of 1989-
1990. They rejected the right of Legco, to them a purely
advisory body, to pronounce on the future of their
territory. To them the reforms and the manner of their
promulgation represented a 180 degree turn in British
policy on cooperation and convergence. They went further
and detected a conspiracy to enhance Hong Kong's
independence and spread the virus of democracy to the
mainland. The Governor's visits to the United States,
Canada and Australia and those governments' endorsements
of his constitutional plans confirmed Peking in
in the
instinctive suspicion that there was international backing
for such a plot.
A confrontation rapidly developed. On the Chinese
side there was sustained invective and threats of
abolishing the legislature in 1997 if the new arrangements
were implemented and setting up before that date a "second
kitchen", that is an alternative centre of authority for
the territory. There could be little doubt of the
seriousness of these warnings; which would mean that the
reforms could at best bring two years of improved
democracy, after the 1995 elections, to be followed by an
indefinite period of a more repressive system. To this had
to be added the effect of divided authority in the remaining
years of British rule and, most worrying of all, the strain
on the Chinese
the Joint
commitment to
Declaration
X
itself.
^)