The 2017 Chief Executive Elections: High Stakes for Hong Kong

“I don’t even know what kind of person Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor is! She used to be one of the good guys, but now she has transformed into another Chinese mouthpiece!” The middle-aged woman, hunched over her plate of rice, was talking loudly in Cantonese as she watched the television hung on the wall.

“What do you expect?! All these politicians are the same. Look at all the candidates, they have been politicians their whole lives. What do they know about living?” replied the man with the whiskery facial hair sitting at the next table.

The two were customers at a local diner located in North Point, a part of Hong Kong Island with significant history. The diner is located in an area that was once a communist stronghold in the late 1950s and 60s. Here, pro-communist leftists who demanded the British colonial rulers return the city back to China, sparked riots in 1967. The riots saw as many as 8,000 homemade bombs planted across the city, killing 51 innocent civilians, the first of which were two young children. The violence stopped abruptly when Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai ordered the leftists to stop at the end 1967.

 A Concise History of Hong Kong notes that the riots prompted the British colonial government to dramatically change its relationship with the people of Hong Kong. They worked to improve working conditions and public communications, and expanded education. Many believe this was a culturally defining time for the city and its inhabitants, the beginning of a period that fostered a sense of self identity for Hong Kong. That sense of identity still has lasting consequences to this day.

In March, the people of Hong Kong discover who will be appointed as their new administrative leader, the chief executive. Appointed -- because only a 1,200-strong election committee comprised of business sector representatives and local billionaire tycoons get to vote amongst themselves between a select number of Beijing-approved candidates.

This election will be an important one for Hong Kong, following a turbulent five years under the leadership of incumbent Chief Executive CY Leung. While he is perhaps the most unpopular leader since the 1997 handover, Leung has done almost everything the Chinese government has demanded, to the disdain of the local people. Many quarters believe that Leung was vying for another term in office given that he had so willingly acquiesced to Beijing’s every command, but his obedience was also the reason that the level of civil unrest in the city has only gotten stronger and the voices of dissent, louder. Leung simply could not please both the people of Hong Kong and the Chinese people’s government simultaneously.

The next chief executive will need to recover the lost trust in the executive council if she or he is to win over both Hong Kong and China. A number of important issues have already arisen so far. But from a political standpoint, there are two major concerns.

First, if there is one legal instrument that always sparks off a dramatic response from the public, it is Article 23 of the Hong Kong Basic Law. It is a powerful provision that essentially obliges the city to enact laws on behalf of China to prohibit:

“Any act of treason, secession, sedition, subversion against the Central People's Government, or theft of state secrets; to prohibit foreign political organizations or bodies from conducting political activities in the Region; and to prohibit political organizations or bodies of the Region from establishing ties with foreign political organizations or bodies.”

This article, and the controversy surrounding it, highlights the rift in trust between the people of Hong Kong and the governing class.

In 2003 the Hong Kong government introduced a National Security Bill to the Legislative Council under the provision of Article 23, which led to widespread demonstrations across Hong Kong. On July 1 of that year, on the sixth anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to China, an estimated 700,000 marched against the bill, congesting traffic and paralyzing public transport.

The proposed National Security Bill was glaringly ambiguous and would allow the police to conduct warrantless searches and permit the government to ban organizations that China had already banned. The wording of the concepts of “government” and “country” were confused and interchangeable; any speech deemed instigative could be regarded as illegal, and all permanent residents of Hong Kong were required to abide by this law, regardless of nationality.

Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee , who was the security secretary at the time, was considered one of the main backers of the proposed bill, and was forced to resign from her position during the controversy, though she cited “personal reasons.” Ip is one of the current contenders for the chief executive position.

A number of this year’s candidates have already mentioned their intention to implement this bill, which suggests this is a key concern for the Chinese government. Ip came out fighting when she announced her policy platform in December, doggedly making a point of enacting Article 23, unsurprisingly given her history with the provision.

John Tsang Chun-wah is the popular favorite as the city enters the final month leading to the elections. He has also raised the prospect of reviving Article 23. When announcing his platform, Tsang said that, if elected, he hoped to get the political reform and national security bills ready before the 2020 Legislative Council polls. Predictably, this did not please the pan-democrat camp. In early February, Tsang changed his tune and said that he had “little confidence about” passing national security laws by 2020. “There’s no problem if we cannot finish it before the new administration’s term expires, but at least we would have finished the basic work,” Tsang said.

The second key issue facing Hong Kong is electoral reform, to finally allow all Hong Kongers to vote in the next chief executive election. At the outset of her campaign, Ip promised to relaunch the political reform process using the National People’s Congress Standing Committee’s stringent framework as the “basis of discussion.” Because this framework would effectively allow Beijing to veto any would-be chief executive from even running, critics denounced it as “fake” democracy. Given that this same proposal sparked 2014’s Umbrella Movement, which saw over 100,000 people occupy the streets of Hong Kong’s core business districts for a period of 79 days, Ip’s support would be curious if she were trying to convince constituents. Of course, she wasn’t though; those comments were supposed to endear her to Beijing.

When Ip announced her candidacy, the race for Beijing’s favor was somewhat of a level playing field. Since that time however, Beijing’s key stalwarts, allegedly including China’s third-most senior leader, Zhang Dejiang, have vocally indicated their preference for rival candidate Carrie Lam on numerous occasions. As a result, Ip has changed her tone dramatically in the past two months, as she now seeks support from across the political divide. In an adjusted policy platform, Ip said, “I think Beijing’s decisions should not be seen as a framework that restricts future development.”

Tsang has remained firm about political framework reform, if only verbally. He has publicly said that Beijing’s 2014 framework should be the starting point for any future attempts at political reform. Perhaps wisely, he has not included this in his election manifesto. Given that the reform package was flatly voted down in 2015 when Tsang was the finance secretary under CY Leung, this could be a smart political move to appease the pan-democrats as well as providing a way out if public sentiment indicates disapproval. It also appeases Beijing.

The politicians and the people of Hong Kong know that Beijing backs Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor because, for the first time, China has unashamedly announced who their desired candidate is. Their apparent lack of consideration for the opinions or desires of Hong Kong constituents is unprecedented but not surprising to the local population, given the increasingly heavy-handed approach the central government has taken to political issues in Hong Kong since 2014. Beijing’s open support for Lam matters because it reflects Hong Kongers’ acknowledgement and even acceptance of the fact that China will undeniably play a role in deciding who the chief executive will be.

China has clearly shown it can be belligerent, but can it also be ingratiating enough to acknowledge Hong Kong’s unique sense of self identity?