Hong Kong May Be in the Eye of a Storm

HONG KONG — It’s been a month since the last of three major demonstrations challenged Hong Kong’s ruling elite, but those in power here take little comfort in the ensuing quiet.

They know more rough times lie ahead.

They also know that the July protests triggered an earthquake -- one that has left Beijing’s handpicked chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa, seriously weakened, his seemingly unassailable majority in Hong Kong’s legislature vulnerable and the government’s ability to prevail on issues no longer assured.

These sudden and unexpected shifts appear to have stunned Tung’s opponents as much as the government itself.

Emboldened by their success in blocking a tough anti-subversion law, demonstrators are unsure how hard to press for more change and how much Beijing’s new leadership will tolerate.

The present calm, people tracking events here believe, signals not an end to Hong Kong’s political crisis, but the eye of a storm as everyone pauses to digest the enormousness of what has happened.

“Nothing can compare to 9/11, but on a lesser scale, that’s what has happened in Hong Kong,” said Liu Kin-Ming, a senior executive at the Apple Daily newspaper, which opposes Tung. “All the givens have changed. It’s hard to know at this point what it all means. But it’s big.”

The size of the protests, one of which drew an estimated half a million people into the streets last month, and the extent of government failures on several issues have already led to calls for Tung’s resignation and immediate moves toward universal suffrage. There is also talk of overhauling Hong Kong’s quirky political system -- a jury-rigged mix of parts of Westminster-style democracy minus any real public accountability -- that is the result of an unresolved debate between Britain and China when the British colony reverted to Chinese rule in 1997 as a quasi-autonomous administrative region.

So far, Beijing indicates that its top priority is stability, a sign that people eager for greater democracy argue means change is possible if done carefully.

“If it’s handled well, the agenda is clear and Hong Kong is peaceful and under control, I think Beijing might accept it,” said Audrey Eu, an independent legislator and prominent critic of Tung’s government.

Since China’s new president, Hu Jintao, encouraged greater openness to help contain the pneumonia-like SARS outbreak in China earlier this year, some people believe the risks of a crackdown are low as long as the opposition remains peaceful and Beijing is not openly provoked.

“I’m sort of hopeful about the new leadership,” said respected civil rights lawyer Gladys Li. “I’m hoping they are prepared to have a fresh look rather than see this as an anti-China ploy.”

Others are less optimistic.

“This will provoke antidemocratic sentiments in Beijing,” predicted Hong Kong University political scientist Sonny Lo, who has closely tracked the region’s gradual integration into mainland China.

The absence of any central leadership to the mass protests and the seemingly endless variety of grievances expressed by those on the streets have also prolonged the debate about the next move.

As a result, six weeks after the largest public demonstration in China since Tiananmen Square in 1989, it remains highly unclear just where events in Hong Kong move from here.

The common denominator among demonstrators appeared to be frustration at the perceived arrogance and ineptitude of Tung and his government, yet activists are divided about what to do about it.

Recently, a disparate group of Hong Kong activists, including outspoken opposition figure Emily Lau, seemed to launch itself on a collision course with Beijing by forming a group whose main stated goal is forcing Tung’s resignation. Despite the depth of discontent, however, the move has so far drawn only a moderate response.

Much of the disillusioned so-called silent majority who marched July 1 seems willing to give Tung another chance after his pledge to listen more to the public.

More active government opponents argue that Tung is just the personification of a flawed political system that needs more democracy, more accountability and political parties with policies, platforms and the chance to share real power.

“Spectacularly unsuccessful,” said Li of the existing system. “There is a complete disconnect between the government and the governed.”

Some argue that allowing Tung to continue in office is the best possible proof the existing system doesn’t work.

“As a tactic, it’s probably better for the democrats to have Tung up there,” said Liu. “He’s very stupid.”

Allowing Tung to remain also avoids any immediate clash with Beijing, advocates of this tactic note.

The fate of the controversial anti-subversion bill is another highly sensitive issue. The bill’s most disputed provisions -- including police searches without warrants and banning Hong Kong organizations with links to groups outlawed on the mainland -- were scrapped in a futile last-minute effort to win legislative approval last month, but deep public suspicion about the government’s motives for pushing the bill so hard remain.

Beijing would like the bill passed sooner rather than later, but there are indications China’s leaders are now ready to accept a more leisurely pace in return for stability.

In an article in the newspaper Da Kung Pao, which is known to reflect the views of mainland elites, influential academic Shi Yin-hong of People’s University in Beijing wrote that the bill should be passed “when the time is ripe and the Hong Kong public understands and approves of it.”

Another dampening factor is that Hong Kong’s abrasive security secretary, Regina Ip, is no longer in charge of shepherding the legislation. The task now falls to her lower-keyed successor, career civil servant Ambrose Lee.

So far, China’s leadership has reacted carefully. It has watched -- and possibly orchestrated -- a series of conciliatory moves by Tung’s government, including the resignation of Ip and another highly unpopular minister and some old-fashioned Communist-style public self-criticism.

“I have made mistakes,” Tung told a news conference last month. “The public has reminded me that I should adopt a more modest, open and sincere attitude in order to win their trust and support.”

In return for his groveling, Tung seems to have won President Hu’s personal support -- at least for now. Hu met with the beleaguered Hong Kong chief executive in Beijing last month, then posed smiling with him for the cameras afterward.

But as a sign of Beijing’s discomfort, mainland authorities blacked out news coverage of the protests. They have since run commentaries in the state-controlled media that note Tung’s failures but blame the crisis on “radical forces,” which, with the backing of external powers, managed to leverage public discontent into a crisis.

Last week, the deputy director of Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong, Zou Zekai, compared Hong Kong’s protests to China’s tumultuous, decade-long Cultural Revolution, noting the huge economic and social costs to China of the chaos. The statement was viewed as a clear warning that political life in the region must remain peaceful.

To ease discontent, Beijing has also moved to boost Hong Kong’s sputtering economy, expanding a free-trade agreement with the mainland and easing restrictions on mainland tourist visits to the region.

Much of Beijing’s energy, however, has been devoted to plugging holes in what appears to have been a catastrophic intelligence failure in which none of a variety of Chinese state agencies with responsibilities for Hong Kong picked up on the level of discontent.

In the weeks since the July 1 protest drew its half a million people onto the streets, teams of mainland officials have descended on the region, speaking with a broad cross-section of residents to paint their own picture of Hong Kong’s mood. Political specialists here worry that such intense central government attention to the region could erode the autonomy Hong Kong now enjoys.

For Hu, his premier, Wen Jiabao, and other members of the so-called fourth generation of Communist leaders that came to power only in March, the stakes in defusing Hong Kong’s crisis smoothly are considerable.

Anything less would discredit the “one country, two systems” model Beijing sees as the basis for its dream of eventually re- integrating Taiwan into China. It would also endanger new influence China has quietly gained elsewhere in East Asia, mainly through its economic clout, but also because of its more measured political behavior.

And with more than $100 billion in exports to the U.S., plus billions more in direct foreign investment capital, Beijing seems unlikely to risk a major human rights confrontation with the West.

Despite all this, the specter of the 1989 massacre of student demonstrators in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square hangs over any debate in Hong Kong.

Nearly everyone here knows that the Chinese authorities allowed those protests to go on for weeks before first denouncing, then crushing them. And while most Hong Kong activists agree the changes in China and its relations with the world outside during the years since that crackdown would seem to preclude any repetition, its shadow has bred caution.

“I keep thinking about Tiananmen,” said Liu, the newspaper executive. “I don’t think Beijing will let us have this victory.”

Special correspondent Anthony Kuhn in Beijing contributed to this report.