4.5.
4.6.
4.7.
The PRC bases its position on the Joint Declaration too:
If the
"We really do not want to see the realisation of a situation in
which the present state of affairs will be greatly changed [before 1997], though it will remain unchanged in the following 50 years. There is only one way to achieve this, that is, both the Chinese and British governments should resolutely and really handle affairs in accordance with the Sino-British Agreement system of representative government [is] totally different from the political system of the future Basic Law, it would be a misfortune for China, Britain and Hong Kong. However, since the British government [is] responsible for the political system reform, [I wish] that the British would handle the issue in a
sensible way.
How Britain "handles issues" is indeed very relevant; but in this paper, I am not referring to issues of state in the main, rather I am referring to one very particular issue: How to take reasonable care and all necessary steps to ensure that the high degree of autonomy promised to Hong Kong is not compromised.
Let me give an example of where I believe it is possible that things may go wrong. So far, I have only visited the PRC twice, so I have much to learn about how it operates. Experience elsewhere, however, leads me to fear that a test of Hong Kong's practical autonomy may come in the following way. Let me set out my concern in a short series of propositions.
(a)
Chinese governance in Beijing exemplifies an authoritarianism and a paternalism. It may also exemplify a belief summarised by Mao
Tse-tung: -
"Communists the world over are wiser than the bourgeoisie,
they understand the laws governing the existence and development of things, they understand dialectics and they
can see farther."
(b) In such circumstances, all "true" servants of the revolution or
the state can become quite easily the instruments of the coercive authority which derives from state power, with those who inhibit them in their work being regarded as "anti-state" or "unpatriotic". For those who exercise their authority as representatives of various communist structures, the central guideline by which they purport to do so is the progressive establishment of an order reflective of their political doctrine. Inhibiting the process by slowing it down, by questioning the calibre of the state servant who makes the decisions, by making demands even for procedural safeguards, all these may be believed to be contrary to the "inexorability" of the process of
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.