The City That Ate a Country - but will it be in time?


I think that the push for democracy in Hong Kong will be the thing that removes communism from China
"The City That Ate a County" has been my description for Hong Kong since it was returned to China.

For more than a century, Hong Kong had the most capitalistic people on the face on the planet. You can't change that with a piece of paper. Certain historians thought that Hong Kong would change China more than China could change Hong Kong.

I thought that the historians didn't go far enough. We know that the one thing that could overcome communism was a free market economy. And Hong Kong had generations of people whose thinking had been shaped by trade. Whenever someone raised the specter of Communist China, I believed that Hong Kong would be the solution, if only there is enough time.

I still believe that. That is why I was happy about this.

Bishop Zen and the Protestant leaders also urged lawmakers to block the plan in the legislature, saying that the government's proposal would not bring Hong Kong any closer to electing its leaders through a fully democratic process.

Universal suffrage "is just like climbing up a mountain - our goal is to reach the peak," Bishop Zen said. "This proposal is just guiding us round and round making pleasure jaunts rather than moving towards the peak. It is a waste of time."

Such broadening opposition to the plan, which had been crafted with the considerable involvement of top mainland Chinese officials, poses the first significant political challenge here for Beijing authorities since they chose Mr. Tsang in March to replace Tung Chee-hwa, who was deeply unpopular.

Controversy over the constitutional plan raises the prospect that Hong Kong may be in a political ferment when trade ministers from around the world gather here for the World Trade Organization ministerial conference from Dec. 13 to 18. The local government has called for the constitutional changes to be debated and voted on Dec. 21.

The chairman of the opposition Democratic Party, Lee Wing-tat, said he and other opponents of the constitutional changes would not organize public protests during the days of the W.T.O. conference itself. "We don't want the central government to accuse us of using an international issue to support our demand," he said in an interview today.

It's still early, but I am very encouraged.

Something strikes me as very Chinese about this, polite, but very determined.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Tue - November 8, 2005 at 08:58 AM  Tag


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