1994 Hong Kong electoral reform

The 1994 Hong Kong electoral reform was a significant constituional changes in the last years of the British coloinal rule in Hong Kong before the handover of its sovereignty to the People's Republic of China in July 1997. The reform proposal was carried out by the last governor Chris Patten to largely broaden the electorate base of the last three-tiers elections in 1994 and 1995:

• 17 September 1995 – the Legislative Council;
• 9 March 1995 – the municipal councils (Urban Council and Regional Council); and
• 18 September 1994 – the local councils (District Boards).

The reform was ferociously opposed by the the Chinese Communist Party government as the violation to the Sino-British agreement. In result, the CCP government terminated the 1995 elected legislature with the expiration of British administration and replaced with the Provisional Legislative Council.

Background

The decision of transfer of the sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997 was finalised by the PRC and UK governments on 18 December 1984 in the Sino-British Joint Declaration. The Declaration stated that the PRC government would resume the exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong (including Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, and the New Territories) with effect from 1 July 1997 from the UK Government. Within these declarations the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall be directly under the authority of the Central People’s Government of the PRC and shall enjoy a high degree of autonomy except for foreign and defence affairs. It shall be allowed to have executive, legislative and independent judicial power, including that of final adjudication.

The colonial government published the Green Paper: The Further Development of Representative Government in Hong Kong on 18 July 1984, decided to carry out democratic reform in Hong Kong. The first indirect Legislative Council election was held in 1985 and direct election was first introduced in the 1991 Legislative Council election, despite the demand of the Hong Kong pro-democracy camp on a fully direct election in 1988 was turned down by the colonial government.

The Tiananmen Square crackdown on 4 June 1989 sparked the great fear towards China among the Hong Kong people. The British Government strengthened its resolve to fasten to pace of democratisation, in order to honour its obligation to the Hong Kong citizens and gracefully retreat from the colony.

In 1992, British prime minister John Major decide that David Wilson should step down as governor of Hong Kong and removed Percy Cradock as foreign policy adviser. To some observers, these personnel changes signalled that the British government was unahppy with its two most important experts on Hong Kong and how Sino-British affairs were proceeding.

Chris Patten, the chairman of the Conservative Party was appointed as the 28th governor of Hong Kong and the first politician appointed to the post. The arrival of Chris Patten on 9 July 1992 marked the new phrase of the democratic transition.

Proposal

On 7 October 1992 during his inaugural policy address to the Legislative Council, Chris Patten announced the 1994-95 electoral arrangements in his. The proposal included:

1. Using the "single seat, single constituency" method for all three tiers of geographical constituency elections to the District Boards, Municipal Councils and Legislative Council;
2. Lowering the minimun voting age from 21 to 18;
3. Abolishing all appointed seats on the District Boards and Municipal Councils;
4. Removing all the restrictions on local deleagtes to China's National People's Congress to stand for election;
5. Broadening the franchise of certain existing fucntional cosntituencies by replacing corporate voting with individual voting;
6. Introducing nine new functional constituency seats to boarden the franchise to 2.7 millions new voters; and
7. Introducing of an Election Committee comprising of District Board members return 10 members to the Legislative Council.

Views

PRC government

The CCP government treated the unanticipated Patten's top-down reforms as a tatic by Western countries to subvert its political system incrementally. Prior to the annoucement of the reform package, British foreign minister Douglas Hurd had given the details of the proposal to PRC foregin minister Qian Qichen. Beijing warned that some aspects of the plan were in violation of the Basic Law, and a legislature so elected would not be able to straddle across from 1997 to 1999. They emphasised taht any arrangements for the 1995 Legislative Council election should be agreed by both sides beforehand. Bejing saw the Patten proposals as direct confrontation.

Beijing made Patten the principal culprit of the trouble and the Chinese propaganda machine singled out him for attack. Lu Ping labelled Patten as "Sinner of a Thousand Years" (Chinese: 千古罪人) at a press conference. In Hong Kong, Xinhua officials used many occasions to criticise Patten. Zheng Guoxiong, Xinhua Hong Kong's deputy director said that:

Patten insisted on confrontation by putting forward his reform proposals. This affected and harmed the prosperity of Hong Kong. Chris Patten did not ahve any sincerity to cooperate with Chian. His attitude was thoroughly confrontational, Chris Patten completely ignored the effort and attitude of teh Chinese government and he brought harmful effects to the prosperity and stability of Hong Kong. He should be the one who bears all the responsibility.

Zhou Nan, the director of the Xinhua News Agency in Hong Kong siad in meeting the chairmen of the District Board said the Patten proposal as "triple violations":

More and more Hong Kong people have realised that Patten's political reform package is in serious violation of the Joint Declaration, the Basic Law and the previous agreements reached by Chinese and Britain. They also realised tath by walking along this wrong path, Patten has already jeopardised and will continue to jeopardise the prosperity and stability of Hong Kong and a smooth transition. We have already taken and shall take all the necessary measures to maintain the stability and prosperity of Hong Kong, to ensure a smooth transition in 1997 and to protect the long-term interests of Hong Kong people. The only way out for Patten is he should immediately abandon his so-called political reform package and stop playing political tricks.

For the Chinese Communist Party, any significant expansion of the electorate base would render Hong Kong less controllable after 1997. The control had already declined after the Tiananmen Square incident in which the pro-democracy activists won a historical landslide victory in the 1991 legislative first direct elections with the greatly spread "anti-China" syndrome.

Pro-democracy camp

The three pro-democratic parties in the Legislative Council, the United Democrats of Hong Kong (UDHK), Meeting Point (MP), and the Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood (ADPL) mostly supported the Patten proposals but had different suggestions on the details of the electoral methods. However, they also desire to ensure political stability and smooth transition of sovereignity and avoid direct confrontations with the Beijing government.

The United Democrats and Meeting Point (later merged into the Democratic Party in 1994) favoured the single-member system. The United Democrats even called for the abolition of 10 seats of the Election Committee and direct election of the 30 legislators, and expand the franchise of the functional constituencies to cover non-working women, students and retired persons.

Different from the UDHK's suggestion of each vote for the Election Committee and functioal constituencies, the ADPL suggested each citizen should cast one vote for either the functional constituencies or the Election Committee. To avoid a clash with the Beijing government, the party later joined the Beijing-controlled Preparatory Committee and was accused by the pro-democratic supporters.

Independent legislator Emily Lau and other some other pro-democracy activists was dissatisfied wit the relatively conservative stance of the three political parties. She demanded a more radical blueprint of having a fully directly-elected legislature installed in 1995.

Meeting Point later abstained in the amendement moved by Emily Lau as it saw any infringement of the Basic Law would enrage the PRC governmetn and result in dismantling of the installed poltiical strucuture as well as instablity. Meeting Point would like to see more democracy in Hong Kong but did not want to antagonise Beijing uduly.

Liberal Party

The pro-business faction led by Allen Lee in the Legislative Coucnil formed the Liberal Party in 1993 followed the Beijing's line of opposing the Patten proposals. The party sought to resolve the Sino-Hong Kong confrontation through negiotations.

Public opinions

Amid the Chinese government's threats, public support for Patten's reform declined intermittently and a polarized public emerged. Opinion surveys revealed despite the majority of the public supported the reform, public support for Chris Patten was stifled by Communists' persistent threats to demolish Hong Kong's political strcuture in 1997 if the reforms were implemented.

Sino-British negotiations

In February 1993, Douglas Hurd wrote to Qian Qichen for proposing negotiation "without preconditions". On 22 April 1993, the two sides reached an agreement taht negotiations would stat in Beijing. Jiang Enzhu, the deputy foreign minister represented the PRC side and Robin McLaren, the British ambassador to China, represented the British side. The two sides held seventeen rounds of talk on the electoral arrangements of the 1994 District Boards and 1995 Legislative Council but failed to reach agreeement.

The Sino-British negotiations effectively came to an end when Douglas Hurd wrote to Qian Qichen that Britain had decided to present the Patten proposals to the Hong Kong Legislative Council for scrutiny. Qian replied that it was a matter of principle to China taht the opinions of the Hong Kong legislature could not supersede the discussion between the two governments and that if the British did indeed put the Patten proposals to the legislature it would mean a breakdown in bilateral negotiations.

Legislative Council voting

Withe the tabling of the Electoral Provisions (Miscellaneous Amendments) (No. 2) Bill 1993 which gives effect to the first four proposed reforms, and the Legislative Council (Electoral Provisions) (Amendment) Bill 1994 which gives effect to the last three prosed reforms) in the Legislative Coucnil, were passed on 24 February 1994 and 30 June 1994 respectively,, despite Lu Ping made phone calls to lobby each legislator to abstain or vote agaisnt the Patten proposals before the voting.

There were fourteen amendments to Patten's bill. Liberal Party and its allies tried to amend the Pattne's proposal by prposing the restriction of the franchise in one functional constituency to a maximum of 153 senior executives which was backed by Beijing, was vetoed by a mere majority of one vote on 29 June 1994.

Emily Lau's amendement of a full direct election in 1995, supported by the United Democrats and ADPL was also vetoed as four Meeting Point legislators abstained.

Aftermath

The Pro-democracy camp experienced the largest victories in the following elections under Patten's reform. District Board elections were held on 18 September 1994 under Patten's reform rules. The newly established Democratic Party won the largest block with 75 seats in 18 District Boards. The Democratic Party won 23 of the 59 seats in the municipal elections on 9 March 1995, combining with other democratic parties and controlled both the Urban Council and Regional Council. On 17 September 1995, the pro-democracy camp won another landslide victory in the fully elected Legislative Council election.

After the Patten prposals were passed, Beijing decided to create the Preliminary Working Committee (PWC) on 16 July 1993. Although it was seen that some such body was necessary in order to prepare for the transition of the sovereignty, the row over the Patten proposals enabled Beijing to issue a warning that unilateral action would result in the setting-up of a "second stove" and when it was formed, to say it was an unforunate product of British confrontation.

The Preliminary Working Committee was ended in December 1995 and succeeded by the Preparatory Committee in 1996. The Preparatory Committee was responsible for implementation work related to the establishment of the HKSAR, including the establishment of the Selection Committee, which in turn was responsible for the selection of the first chief executive and the members of the Provisional Legislative Council which replaced the Legislative Council elected in 1995. The Provisional Legislative Coucnil reverted most of the Patten's reform, by resuming the appointed seats to the District Councils, Urban Council and Regional Coucnil, reintroducing the corporate voting in some functional constituencies, narrow the franchise of the nine new functaional constituencies to about 20,000 voters, and changed to "single seat, single constituency" method into proportional representation system for the Legislative Council elections.

Despite the revesal of the electoral system, the Patten's reform significantly rewrote the Hong Kong political landscape by polarising and politicalising the Hong Kong politics.

Timeline

The events of the electoral reform went on as follows:

1992

• 9 July – Chris Patten arrives in Hong Kong as the last colonial governor.
• 7 October – The Governor announces plans for the 1994-95 electoral arrangements in his inaugural policy address to the Legislative Council, provoking severe Beijing's criticism.
• 16 Ocotober – Premier Li Peng criticises Governor Patten's electoral reform proposal.
• 23 Ocotober – Lu Ping states China will set up HKSAR organs unilaterally if British deviate from agreed convergence with the Basic Law.
• 16 November – The British cabinet expresses full support for the Patten reform. PRC vice premier Zhu Rongji comments in London that if Patten proceeds with reform, China might as well abandon the 1984 Joint Declaration.
• 30 November – Beijing threatens to invalidate all Hong Kong government contracts extending beyond July 1997 if the lack prior Chinese approval.

1993

• 1 February – Zhou Nan, chief PRC representative in Hong kong denounces the British for "triple violations" of bilateral agreements on electoral reform and transitional matters.
• 12 March – After four postponements, Governor Patten announces the new electoral bill when Beijing fails to set the time for bilateral talks on electoral arrangements.
• 15–16 March – Li Peng in his NPC report attacks Patten for violating Sino-British accords. Lu Ping condemns Patten as "sinner of a millennium" and warns that China will set up its own separate organs for the new HKSAR.
• 22 April – Sino-British talks begin in Beijing on the arrangements for the 1994-95 elections in Hong Kong. The talks last for 17 rounds until December 1993.
• 22 June – Beijing names 27 mainland officials and 30 Hong Kong residents to the Preliminary Working Committee (PWC) as a predecessor to the |HKSAR Preparatroy Committee to be set up in 1996 to oversee final phase of sovereignty transfer and HKSAR establishment.
• 16 July – The PWC is inaugurated in Beijing by its chair, PRC foreign minister Qian Qichen.
• 19 October – Lu Ping reiterates Beijing's warning that Hong Kong should not become a political city but must remain only an economic hub.
• 27 November – Sino-British talks on Hong Kong elections end without agreement.
• 10 December – Patten announces the first part of his electoral bill, which is later presented to the LegCo, provoking condemnation from PRC officials.
• 27 December – Beijing announces it will dismantle colonial Hong Kong's three tiers of elected representation in July upon the HKSAR's establishment.

1994

• 18 Febraruy – Sino-British dispute breaks out over London's publication of its account of the unsuccessful 17 rounds of talks on Hong Kong electoral reform.
• 23 Febraruy – The LegCo approves Patten reform's first part: voting age at 18, single-seat, single-vote for all elections, no more appointed District Board or LegCo members.
• 13 March – Zhou Nan claims that even without British cooperation, China could maintain Hong Kong's prosperity and ability beyond 1997 but will not tolerate its "internationalization."
• 30 June – The Legislative Council (Electoral Provisions) (Amendment) Bill 1994 is passed in the Legislative Council in a 32 to 24 vote.
• 18 September – District Board elections are held under Patten's reform rules. The Democratic Party has the largest block with 75 seats in 18 District Boards.
• 23 December – Zhou Nan denounces Governor Patten for his refusal to cooperate with the PWC, which has no legal standing under the Basic Law.

1995

• 1 February – PRC officials in Hong Kong urge local patriots to stand for the September LegCo elections in preparation for the 1997 retrocession.
• 9 March – The Democratic Party wins 23 of the 59 seats in the Urban and Regional Council elections.
• 17 September – Elections for Hong Kong’s first fully elected Legislative Council are held, 26 percent of the 2.57 million registered voters turn out at the poll.
• 8 December – Beijing ends the PWC and appoints a Preparatory Committee (94 Hong Kong residents among 150 members) to establish HKSAR oragns.

1996

• 26 January – The HKSAR Preparatory Committee holds its first full session in Beijing.
• 4 March 1996 – The Preparatory Committee votes to replace the LegCo with an appointed Provisional Legislative Council (PLC) on 1 July 1997.
• 25 September – Beijing releases full list of 5,791 candidates for the 400 seats on the Selection Committee holds a first ballot on the chief executive.
• 11 December – Shipping tycoon and former ExCo member Tung Chee-hwa gains 320 votes from the 400-strong Selection Committee to become the first HKSAR chief executive. A week later, Premier Li Peng confirms Tung's appointment as HKSAR chief executive for a five-year term from 1 July 1997.
• 21 December – The Selection Committee meets in Shenzhen to decide the membership of the 60-seat PLC.

1997

• 25 January– The PLC meets in Shenzhen; as an extraconstitutional body, it cannot legally function in Hong Kong before 1 July 1997.
• 27 June – Last meeting of the LegCo is held. The LegCo is dissolved and replaced by PLC after 30 June 1997.
• 30 June–1 July – Ceremonies of the handover of Hong Kong and the establishment of the HKSAR are held.

Bibliography

• Dimbleby, Jonathan (1997). The last governor: Chris Patten & the handover of Hong Kong. London: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN ISBN0316640182. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Loh, Christine (2010). Underground front. Hong Kong University Press. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Sing, Ming (2004). Hong Kong's Tortuous Democratization: A Comparative Analysis. Routledge. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)