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A Question of Patriotism

Beijing was pressed to take action for two reasons: First, having chosen not to remove Tung, the central government was faced with a significantly weakened chief executive. Second, Hong Kong had already begun a process of constitutional review, one in which decisions would be made about whether and how to change Hong Kong’s political system so as to allow for greater democratization of the electoral process. Given Tung’s weak hand, it was clear that, if constitutional review were allowed to go forward without any interference from Beijing, then the SAR government would be forced to give ground and allow at least some democratization to move forward.

Under the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, the electoral framework is set for all elections prior to the 2007 election of the chief executive and the 2008 Legislative Council elections. If the electoral process for the 2007 and 2008 elections is to be changed, then, according to Annex I and II of the Basic Law, the changes must be approved by a two-thirds majority of the Legislative Council and the Chief Executive.

The main provisions of the Basic Law pertaining to elections are Article 45, Article 68, and Annex I and II. Articles 45 and 68 state that the “ultimate aim (for Hong Kong elections) is… universal suffrage.” Annex I of the Basic Law lays out the process for the selection of the Chief Executive, and Annex II covers the Legislative Council. Both annexes impose limits on the conduct of elections until 2007 and 2008, for the Chief Executive and the Legislative Council, respectively.

Because the method for electing the Legislative Council is not considered relevant to Beijing’s interests or responsibilities in Hong Kong, the central government is not accorded any significant role in the process of changing the format for the Legislative Council elections after 2007. Beijing’s role is limited to mere notification.²² Changes to the provisions covering the election of the Chief Executive, on the other hand, must be approved by Beijing.

In order for any electoral change to be made, the SAR government must first legislate. Well before the November 2003 District Council elections, the Hong Kong government announced its plans to begin consultation with the public on constitutional review – specifically changes to Hong Kong’s election framework – in early 2004.²³

Given the comparatively low popularity of the pro-Beijing parties in late 2003, real reform of the electoral system would likely have meant that the pro-democratic parties would finally regain their pre-1997 majority in the Legislative Council. By all accounts, Beijing was not ready for this.²⁴

Once the decision was made to clamp down on democratization in Hong Kong, there were two questions to answer: how and when. As for how, the central government’s options were limited. If the Hong Kong government were to simply reverse course on constitutional reform, the hand of Beijing would be obvious, and the Hong Kong government’s local political standing would be further damaged, perhaps irreparably. The central government would have to act on its own.

The question of when was also a political one: if the central government was going act, it would have to act relatively quickly. If no action was taken before July 1, 2004, then the question of universal suffrage would likely bolster turnout and lead to a repeat of July 1, 2003. According to one Hong Kong political analyst, “This would have put Beijing and the Hong Kong government in a very difficult spot. The protest would have been focused on a demand that Beijing could not meet.”²⁵

In addition, if no action was taken before the 2004 election season, then the pan-democratic camp would be able to use universal suffrage as a campaign issue, and likely dramatically boost turnout and their own vote total as a result. “If they allowed the process to drag on, then electoral reform would become an election issue,” said one Democratic legislator. “The pro-democratic camp would use the issue to attack the DAB and other pro-Beijing parties.”²⁶

Regardless of when the final decision was made, it is clear that Beijing took a new approach to Hong Kong starting in early December 2003. The new approach was more vocal and more direct. As of December 2003, the central government became less willing to merely voice its concerns to the Hong Kong government, and began implementing policy on its own. According to one pan-democratic legislator, with Tung sidelined, “it’s now naked confrontation with the government. There was a shield. Now Beijing is directly responsible.”²⁷

The first indication of Beijing’s more hands-on approach took place during Chief Executive Tung’s visit to Beijing in early December. On December 3, Chief Executive Tung went to Beijing to consult with the central government on the political situation in Hong Kong. During the meeting, Chinese President Hu Jintao told Tung that Beijing was “highly concerned” about the ongoing constitutional review in Hong Kong. Hu’s remarks were followed by comments by four senior mainland academics, all of whom argued that Beijing had a primary role deciding on in any change to Hong Kong’s political structure. 

Articulating publicly for the first time arguments that would become a staple of Beijing’s rhetoric on Hong Kong over the coming months, the four academics stressed the “one country” aspect of the “one country, two systems” framework, which, they argued, made it clear that Beijing must play a part in virtually any major decision having to do with Hong Kong. More specifically, the Beijing academics stated that Hong Kong’s electoral system “had a bearing on the relationship between the Central government and the SAR.” As such, it would not be an infringement on Hong Kong’s autonomy for Beijing to have an active role in decisions over how to amend that system, if at all.

This view contradicted earlier statements by the central government on the issue. In years past, Beijing had clearly stated that electoral arrangements were the exclusive province of Hong Kong. Four years before the handover, in March 1993, Lu Ping, the then-Director of the Hong Kong and Macao office of the State Council, made clear that, after 2007, further reforms would be up to the people of Hong Kong:

As for how the legislature will be constituted after its third term, all that is needed is for two-thirds of legislators to approve, the chief executive to give his consent, and then report to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress for the record. There is no need for central government approval. How Hong Kong develops democracy in the future is entirely within the autonomy of Hong Kong.²⁸ 

But, as of December 2003, Beijing began to articulate a different view.

This changed view was reiterated in mid-January 2004, during the visit of mainland academics Xiao Weiyuan and Xia Yong to Hong Kong. During the visit, the academics argued that direct election of the Chief Executive in 2007 was inconsistent with the Basic Law principle of “gradual and orderly progress,” and once again emphasized the importance of “one country” over “two systems.” Beijing spent the first three months of 2004 putting the substance of the interpretation – that political reform was Beijing’s business – into the public sphere, so as to prepare the political ground for the issuance of the official legal document.

The Patriotism Campaign

The second stage of Beijing’s more aggressive approach to Hong Kong was the so-called patriotism campaign, in which the central government emphasized that only those politicians with the proper “patriotic” credentials could rule Hong Kong. Patriotism was defined by the government as not only loving Hong Kong, but also, it was implied, allegiance to the Communist Party.

The campaign was not simply politics as usual: in launching an attack on the pan-democrats in general, and on its most prominent spokesmen and women in particular, Beijing was signaling to Hong Kong’s voters that supporting the pan-democrats would come with a price. “They wanted to create an environment of intimidation in which Hong Kong people might rationally choose not to confront Beijing,” one Hong Kong academic who has followed the campaign closely noted. “The intimidation makes them (voters) realize that being pro-democracy comes at a cost.”²⁹

In essence, the central government was introducing a mainland political tool to Hong Kong, that of the veiled threat made through a public ideological attack.  The reference to “patriotism,” in particular, would not be lost on Hong Kong’s population, much of which had emigrated to Hong Kong both in search of greater economic opportunity and to escape political repression. For decades in China, questioning an individual’s allegiance to the state and to the party was the first step in a process of political purge, imprisonment, or worse.

The first sign of the coming campaign came in late January, when the Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao published an account of an argument between Donald Tsang, Hong Kong’s chief secretary for administration, and Shiu Sin-por, the executive director of the One-Country Two-Systems Policy Research Institute. In the debate, Shiu argued that patriotism takes precedence over democracy, and that “one country” is more important than political reform.³⁰

The patriotism campaign had all the hallmarks of an old-style pre-reform Chinese communist propaganda campaign. Before it was over, the patriotism campaign featured the words of a venerated Chinese patriarch, violent and veiled rhetorical attacks by unnamed senior Chinese officials, and repeated references to a “small minority” of Hong Kong politicians who were allegedly not patriotic. The campaign was sustained over a period of several weeks, with new attacks on an almost-daily basis. Senior officials in Beijing chimed in, regardless of the relevance of Hong Kong affairs to their official portfolio, and local pro-Beijing officials in Hong Kong either took part themselves or, more often, stood by and said nothing.

The opening salvo of the campaign was fired in mid-February, when the official Xinhua news agency published an article emphasizing the importance of “patriotism” among Hong Kong’s leaders, and declaring that those who were not sufficiently patriotic were unfit to rule Hong Kong. Several additional articles of a similar tone followed. Although the articles named neither the Democratic Party nor any individual member of the pro-democratic camp, it was clear to all observers to whom Beijing was referring.

Although Xinhua stopped short of naming names, pro-Beijing politicians in Hong Kong did not. On February 13, Tsang Hin-chi, the head of the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce and a Hong Kong representative to the National People’s Congress, named Democratic Party legislators Martin Lee and Szeto Wah as unpatriotic.³¹

But Tsang also cast a wider net, declaring that those who opposed the government’s Article 23 proposals and those who organized the July 1, 2003 protests were also unpatriotic. “I can definitely say that those who organized the anti-Article 23 protest are not patriots, because they dared to oppose and vote down the national security law,” Tang said, effectively equating the exercise of the basic rights of free expression and free assembly with a lack of patriotism.³²

Despite his key role in forcing the government to withdraw its Article 23 proposals, Tsang specifically exempted James Tien, head of the Liberal Party, from the ranks of the unpatriotic. 

On February 16, the pro-Beijing Wen Wei Po published an interview with an unnamed Chinese government official who warned that Beijing might be forced to act if the democrats won the Legislative Council in the upcoming elections. According to the newspaper, the official refused to rule out the dissolution of the Legislative Council as a possible response. “I have a knife,” the official said. “Usually it is not used, but now you force me to use this knife.”³³

The next day, An Min, the central government’s vice-minister of commerce, continued the rhetorical barrage, implying that the pan-democratic camp had “distorted the principles of patriotism.” Responding to a reporter’s question, An connected patriotism to support of the Communist Party:

Patriotism is not abstract. Some people have been making ridiculous comments on the issue, deliberately distorting the principles of patriotism… There are some who deliberately made confusing remarks, saying loving the country is not tantamount to loving the Communist Party. The Chinese Communist Party represents the Chinese people and it should also represent Hong Kong compatriots.³⁴

Beijing continued its campaign on February 20^th, with the republication of a twenty-year-old speech by former Chinese patriarch Deng Xiaoping on the front page of the People’s Daily. Ostensibly issued to mark the upcoming 14^th anniversary of the publication of the Basic Law, the republication of the speech was read as another veiled attack on the democratic camp.

Ironically, in his remarks, Deng himself adopted a very broad definition of who in Hong Kong would be considered a patriot, as a number of Hong Kong newspapers pointed out:

What is a patriot? A patriot is one who respects the Chinese nation, sincerely supports the motherland's resumption of sovereignty over Hong Kong and wishes not to impair Hong Kong's prosperity and stability. Those who meet these requirements are patriots, whether they believe in capitalism or feudalism or even slavery. We don't demand that they be in favor of China's socialist system; we only ask them to love the motherland and Hong Kong.³⁵

Despite Deng’s very inclusive definition, an editorial that ran with the text of the speech stated that patriots are those who support the central government. The editorial selectively quoted Deng’s definition to bolster that view.

On February 24, Xinhua published an article by Tang Hua, deputy chief editor of the Xinhua magazine Outlook, which claimed that certain Hong Kong politicians are guilty of “subversion”: 

Some people continue to participate in or even lead political organizations aiming at opposing the leadership of the Communist Party and subverting the central government, using democracy as a shield.³⁶

Although Tang did not identify these alleged subversive elements by name, it was clear that he was referring to the democrats and their allies.³⁷

The rhetoric reached a crescendo just before, during and especially after Democratic legislator Martin Lee was invited to Washington to testify before the U.S. Congress on the political situation in Hong Kong in early March. As he had done several times in the past, Lee, the longtime head of the Democratic Party, testified before the subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee that deals with East Asia on the political situation in Hong Kong. His remarks were not particularly long, and focused on the July 1 protest, the government’s Article 23 proposals, and the need for democratic reforms in Hong Kong.

Lee’s remarks, and the fact that he made them in the United States, touched off a firestorm of criticism. On March 7, Vice-Minister An Min once again took the lead, calling Lee a traitor and a liar and linking Lee’s testimony in the U.S. to the activities of his father, Li Yinwo, who An called an anti-communist. “Anyone can see that (Lee’s visit to the U.S.) was not good for Hong Kong. How can treachery be considered good for Hong Kong?,” An told reporters.³⁸ 

Much of the ensuing rhetoric, if virulent, was at least colorful: the Hong Kong edition of the China Daily launched an attack on Lee under the headline, “Martin Lee lets U.S. Senate act as if Hong Kong was 51^st State.” State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan took a more metaphorical approach:

“There is no need whatsoever to go worship at a foreign temple and invite a foreign Buddha to make irresponsible remarks,” Tang said.³⁹ The pro-Beijing Wen Wei Po dubbed Lee a “clown” and claimed that he was a “pawn” of the U.S. government.⁴⁰

By April 2004, the patriotism campaign had largely fizzled out, although some politicians still make veiled comments on the importance of patriotism, and references to the importance of patriotic credentials still appear from time to time in the pro-Beijing media.