TNAG-1900-FCO40-2699-Future-of-Hong-Kong-briefing-1989 — Page 5

Joseph Y. S. Cheng

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The local community considered this a legitimate goal widely supported by the Chinese people, and believed that maintenance of the status quo in Hong Kong would enable the territory to contribute to China's modernization. This was the foundation of the confidence in the Sino-British Joint Declaration and various promises made by the Chinese leaders to Hong Kong. The developments in China in recent months have shown that power struggles within the Chinese leadership can totally disregard this goal and related priorities. It has also been demonstrated that since power has been concentrated in the hands of a few gerontocratic leaders a system of checks and balances does not exist and even the Party politburo can be ignored. This meant that trust in the Chinese leadership, the Sino-British Joint Declaration and the draft Basic Law has been badly shaken, and a meaningful dialogue with Beijing will be difficult and may even lack legitimacy.

In response tothe recent developments in China, it was expected that the proportion of the population seeking emigration would significantly increase—a prediction which has already been substantiated by the doubling and trebling of emigration- related enquiries received by the consulates general of countries like the United States, Canada and Australia in recent months. Demands for the right of abode for the 3.25 million holders of British Dependent Territory Citizen (BDTC) passports have been stepped up, while attempts have also been made to seek some form of international guarantee for Hong Kong people's rights and freedoms beyond 1997. At the same time, there has emerged a broad consensus for the acceleration of the development of representative government in the territory in the transitional period before 1997.

The development of the democracy movement

1970-85: growth

In the early 1970s the democracy movement in Hong Kong developed at two levels. Regarding issues with a direct impact on their daily life, working-class people gradually learned to reorganize themselves to attract media attention and influence public opinion, to petition and to engage in various forms of protest activities in order to protect and promote their interests. Social workers from voluntary agencies funded by Western churches and student activists from the universities, polytechnics and colleges also began to take part in these campaigns. The most obvious examples of these ad hoc campaigns were the protests and petitions organized by residents in the clearances of illegal squatter huts by the government. In the late 1970s, the development of grassroots pressure groups reached the stage when territory-wide campaigns for citizens' rights could be organized. Classic examples were campaigns against the raising of bus fares and demanding citizen supervision of the monopolistic electric power companies.

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At the same time, student movements developed in the tertiary educational institutions. They played an important role in the campaign for Chinese as an official language. But the students' ideals and concern for global developments and their sympathy with the 'motherland' of the People's Republic of China obviously did not appeal to the grassroots pressure groups. In the second half of the 1970s political groups such as the Hong Kong Observers emerged. They represented the local-born

6. See King-cheung Chan, 'Hong Kong's student movement' (in Chinese), in Joseph Cheng, ed., Politics and the political system of Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Cosmos Books, 1987, in Chinese), pp. 289-314; also Hong Kong Federation of Students, ed., Review of Hong Kong's student movement (Hong Kong: Wide Angle Press, 1983, in Chinese).