BANKERS TRUST SECURITIES RESEARCH
full-fledged Western democracy. Equally, some of the central British institutions which make Hong Kong successful deviate widely from accepted practice in Western democracies. (ICAC, the anti-corruption agency, was at some pains, following the recent enactment of a bill of rights in Hong Kong, to point out how severely the bill would constrain its activities. The British government takes great and justifiable pride in the results of ICAC, but refrains from publicizing its methods. Li Peng could come to love ICAC.)
It would be wrong to ignore the structural differences. For instance, the Chinese rule through a political party and do not allow judicial autonomy, whereas the British eschew the political party and insist on judicial autonomy. Behind British colonial rule is the benign Westminster Parliament, whereas behind China's Basic Law lie the rough games of the National People's Congress. But it would be obtuse to miss the degree of similarity: the structures the two sides have in mind are sufficiently similar to allow a workable convergence, and in the case of Hong Kong China has conceded that its goals (assuring a flow of foreign capital, technology, and social techniques into China while keeping foreigners' access to China proper limited) can only be attained by allowing the structure to continue pursuing a largely capitalist and liberal path.
In short, Britain has always been a willing accomplice in subordinating democracy to stability and prosperity. And this may be wise rather than unprincipled. Hong Kong is small, divided by severe ethnic rivalries, intensely fearful, transient in population, confused in loyalties, vulnerable to triad pressures, and irredeemably neither a nation-state nor a city-state. It is part of China and universally acknowledged to be so. It maintains stability only by pursuing policies and growing at rates and deploying numbers of police that have never been characteristic of liberal democracy. Under such circumstances, the prospects for democracy are inherently poor.
Thus, while a system that will allow direct election of only 20 out of 60 legislators, that will permit PRC review of laws concerning foreign affairs and national security, and that will choose a Governor through an electoral college ratified by China's NPC is hardly a democracy, it is also more than could reasonably be expected based on historical experience elsewhere.
Despite the shortfall of democracy, the prospects for maintaining a high degree of personal liberty, press freedom, and judicial fairness by Third World standards, along with stability and prosperity are far from hopeless. Britain has striven to achieve this, and if it were to succeed in any significant measure, the appropriate world response would be to applaud a noble achievement, and to measure that achievement in comparison with
Britain's policy is
realistic, not
unprincipled
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