HONG KONG GEARS UP FOR A WORLD WITHOUT WALLS
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education, social provision and the range of quality of life issues. The commission's task was to set out the parameters for Hong Kong to become Asia's World City.
Hong Kong has long been the meeting place of East and West. The roots of its internationalism are deeply and irrevocably embedded. These include its large expatriate population, an unrivalled network of international schools, the retention of English as one of its two official languages, its inheritance of the common law legal system, an apolitical civil service and its spectacular cross-cultural lifestyle.
This cosmopolitan nature clearly underlines Hong Kong's high degree of autonomy under 'one country two systems'. Hong Kong is proud of its new place in China, but it is different to any other city in the Mainland. Therein lies its value to China: a bridge still between the Mainland and the rest of the world, and a window also for China's rapidly-evolving economy.
China's accession to the WTO will enhance rather than diminish this role. As the Mainland adapts to the rules-based regime of the WTO, more and more international business operations will be looking to take advantage of its massive market potential. This will mean a bigger slice of a larger economic pie for Hong Kong.
It will also mean an increase in the number of foreign businessmen and women who will want to leverage Hong Kong's unsurpassed cultural and economic links and its business connections in all parts of China, many of which are in the early stages of opening up to foreign trade and investment. Hong Kong already has a well-established presence in them, as well as in the established major centres of development.
This new infusion of international interest and involvement will provide fresh impetus to Hong Kong's World City aspirations and further underline its value to the Mainland under 'one country two systems'.
There is also a comfort level for the international community in Hong Kong's system of open and transparent government, with an executive-led administration being accountable to a fully-elected legislature. Less familiar is the internal contradiction within these arrangements whereby the executive does not have a governing party in the Legislative Council-it can barely rely on a single vote. At the same time, legislators are frustrated by their perceived lack of participation in the policy-making process.
Fortunately, Hong Kong's constitutional document, the Basic Law, has a mechanism through which the community has the opportunity in 2007 to resolve this conundrum. It also lays down a timetable for a more directly representative Legislative Council with the ultimate aim of universal suffrage.
Another round of elections for the Legislative Council is to be held in September 2000. As the Basic Law electoral timetable ticks on towards 2007, the question Hong Kong must ask itself is: are the present arrangements sustainable in the long term? If they are not, what would be better, more workable?
These are profound questions, and the answers will require considerable political wisdom and subtlety. Above all, Hong Kong people will need to be willing to narrow their differences and arrive at a uniquely Hong Kong solution that will command the broad support of the citizens of the SAR. Unity, not division, will protect the SAR's autonomy under the 'one country two systems' principle.
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