Hong Kong: Is Democracy taking hold in China?

[Arrian]

Fez v. Floyd... ruining a thoughtful Sava thread ACK!

Bizzare. I'm off to lunch.

-Arrian

[David Floyd]

Mindseye,

Yeah I should resist, but debating Fez is both fun and unfuriating at the same time.

[Giancarlo]

why is individual liberty not more important than national security?

In some cases it isn't. Life or death decision that has to be made there. You can loosen controls and allow terrorists to flood a country as you support doing, or you can increase security as what I support. Such as militarization of the police force.

why is that unacceptable?
why is floyd not credible?

Responsible government is one with a large Security Services establishment yet economically transparent.

Mindseye, shut up.

[Alinestra Covelia]

China is unlikely to head down the democracy path anytime soon. I don't think it would necessarily be a pretty transformation either - I find myself siding with the people who fear that a bad transition will lead to much more harm than good in the short run.

However, China is definitely adopting some hybrid allowing greater economic freedom. Hong Kong's continued prosperity can only lead to greater emulation by the mainland. The government seems to be gambling on a feeling that as economic conditions improve, people will not feel the need to do too much pushing for political freedom.

I have also added Fez to my ignore list. Although he does score major points with me because "Euro boy" was the name of an excellent magazine featuring naked men in acts of varying legality that the girls at my boarding house enjoyed greatly.

[Giancarlo]

Although he does score major points with me because "Euro boy" was the name of an excellent magazine featuring naked men in acts of varying legality that the girls at my boarding house enjoyed greatly.

That I didn't know.

Go ahead add me to your ignore list. I don't even know who you are.

[Q Classic]

In some cases it isn't. Life or death decision that has to be made there.

a famous american once said something along the lines of "give me liberty or give me death!" have we forgotten that so soon? it does not bode well for our longevity if we have.

You can loosen controls and allow terrorists to flood a country as you support doing, or you can increase security as what I support.

whoa, hold on there. i never said i wanted to loosen controls. i asked why it was wrong to criticize bush. don't put words in my mouth.
for the record, i think immigration background checks should be tightened a helluva lot more... but that is not the issue here.

the issue here, at least between you and me, is why is criticising bush, the current president, a bad thing when you disagree with what he is doing?

Such as militarization of the police force.

martial law? no thank you.

[Tingkai]

Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee Hwa's government (aka The Hong Kong Dictatorship) suffered yet another massive blow with two of the top three senior mandarins resigning today.

Secretary for Security Regina Ip resigned for "personal reason". She has been the focus of criticism after leading the effort to slam through a bill that would have deprived people of their rights (The bill would have allowed police searches without a court warrant and would have allowed the government to ban groups deemed subversive by the Beijing government).

Ip was famous for saying that people were not smart enough to understand proposed legislation and for saying that people would take part in a July 1 protests because they had nothing better to do. 500,000 people took part in that protest.

Financial Secretary Anthony Leung also resigned. He is under investigation by the Independent Commission Against Corruption for buying a luxury car weeks before his budget increased taxes on these cars.

Two weeks ago, the Tung government lost the support of the Liberal Party, a small but politically powerful group.

China's national government has also been distancing itself from Tung.



Next to go will be old man Tung. The only problem is that Tung is incredible indecisive so it will probably be weeks before he figures out what to do.

[mindseye]

The details for TingKai's post, from today's NY Times:

2 Top Officials in Hong Kong Resign in Wake of Protests
By KEITH BRADSHER


HONG KONG, July 16 — Two weeks of street protests here produced a government crisis tonight as two top officials announced their resignations and the territory's chief executive said he would fly to Beijing on Saturday to consult China's rulers about what to do next.

The resignations of Regina Ip, the secretary of security, and Antony Leung, the financial secretary, represent a very public humiliation for Beijing because the two had the reputation of enjoying particularly close ties to top Communist officials.

Mrs. Ip was widely seen as Beijing's enforcer, sending police and immigration officers to perform sometimes politically controversial raids. Mr. Leung is a former student radical who married China's Olympic diving gold medalist, Fu Mingxia, last summer.

After Tung Chee-hwa, the chief executive, Mrs. Ip and Mr. Leung attracted the most vehement criticism at a march on July 1 that drew a half-million people, most of them to protest a stringent internal-security bill that Mrs. Ip had championed.

The resignations tonight came despite Beijing's hardening stance toward the rallies here in Hong Kong, which has been a special administrative region of China since Britain handed it over six years ago.

Gao Siren, the head of Beijing's liaison office here, called on Tuesday for Hong Kong residents to focus more on the economy than on politics. The Hong Kong edition of the official China Daily warned in an editorial on Monday that the march on July 1 and follow-up rallies on July 9 and last Sunday represented "a vehicle for subverting the political system" here.

Richard Tsoi, one of the main organizers of the July 1 march, said that demonstrators wanted lasting protections for civil liberties and broad democratic reforms to the political system here much more than the resignations of ministers. "We still think we have a long way to go," he said.

Near the front of the march was a three-headed effigy of Mrs. Ip standing at Mr. Tung's left side and waving a butcher's knife while Mr. Leung peeked out from behind Mr. Tung's right shoulder, a reference to Mr. Tung's shielding him in a tax scandal.

Mrs. Ip said she was resigning for unspecified personal reasons. Mr. Leung, whose resignation came two hours later and seemed to catch the government by surprise, said he felt that he had completed budgetary and economic stimulus plans that he wanted.

Mrs. Ip, who kept a sword from the People's Liberation Army at the front of her desk, has overseen the city's police, immigration, customs and other uniformed officers since July 1998.

Her efforts to push through the proposed security legislation, demanded by Beijing but deeply unpopular here, became almost as controversial as the bill itself. She questioned last autumn the value of democracy in protecting civil liberties and suggested that Hitler gained power because of universal suffrage, a position that historians dispute because of Hitler's reliance also on political violence. Three days before the July 1 march, she declared that she would not feel any pressure no matter how many people showed up.

Mrs. Ip and Mr. Tung said in separate statements this evening that she had actually submitted her resignation on June 25, and that Mr. Tung had tried to talk her out of it before finally accepting it. Resignations for top officials become effective 30 days after submission, so Mrs. Ip will leave office on July 25.

The government's insistence that Mrs. Ip gave her resignation three weeks ago but that nobody found out about it until now struck political experts. "The government obviously doesn't want it to look like she's resigning under pressure from the demonstrations," said Michael Davis, a professor of law and public affairs at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Mr. Leung is the third-ranking official in the government, after Mr. Tung and Donald Tsang, the chief secretary. But he has kept a very low public profile since he saved himself $24,000 by buying a Lexus LS430 luxury sedan a month before he raised luxury car taxes steeply in March as part of an unpopular series of tax increases.

The government's anticorruption agency finished an investigation of him this week but has not made the results public. Mr. Leung did not address the subject in announcing his resignation tonight.

Mr. Leung said in a statement that his resignation was effective immediately; Mr. Tung waived the normal 30-day delay for the resignation of ministers.

Mr. Tung did not announce successors for Mrs. Ip or Mr. Leung. As minister-level appointments, their successors must be approved first by Beijing.

Mr. Tung announced on July 5 that he was removing three of the most controversial provisions from the bill, including one that would have allowed the government to ban any Hong Kong group linked to an organization banned on the mainland for national security reasons.

But the march so rattled the city's business leaders that the chairman of the pro-business party resigned from Mr. Tung's cabinet the following night. That left Mr. Tung without the votes to push the bill through the legislature and forced him on July 7 to postpone further consideration of the bill. No new timetable has been set.

[Kidicious]

Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia
However, China is definitely adopting some hybrid allowing greater economic freedom. Hong Kong's continued prosperity can only lead to greater emulation by the mainland. The government seems to be gambling on a feeling that as economic conditions improve, people will not feel the need to do too much pushing for political freedom.

If you mean the freedom of a minority to get rich, then the Party is right. That won't encourage people to pursue politcal freedom. But if you mean greater wellbeing that will probably lead people to pursue more political freedom. Look at the history of African Americans in the US. After their standard of living started to increase in the 20th century they started demanding political freedom and equality.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Fez
I never run out of material. I just ran out of patience to argue with somebody like you.

As long as that material is sh!t, you have an endless supply. Why don't you go Fez up one of the lighter threads drama queen, and leave the rest of us to enjoy what intelligent opinion we can find on these forums/fora.

[Giancarlo]

Calling me an idiot? You are the idiot.

[mindseye]

From today's NY Times:

Bending to Protests, Hong Kong Leader Will Revisit Security Bill
By KEITH BRADSHER


HONG KONG, July 17 — Retreating further in response to street protests, Hong Kong's leader announced this evening that he would begin another round of public consultation over controversial internal-security legislation, but stopped short of saying he would accept changes to it.

The new round of consultations could push a final vote on the bill well into the autumn and possibly much later, allowing tempers to cool after three large rallies since the start of July.

A march on July 1 drew a half-million protesters and prompted Tung Chee-hwa, Hong Kong's chief executive, to tone down the bill and announce, on July 7, that he would defer legislative review for at least a few days.

Mr. Tung's announcement this evening followed the resignation on Wednesday night of two top officials, Regina Ip, the secretary of security, and Antony Leung, the financial secretary, a setback for Beijing because the two had the reputation of enjoying particularly close ties to top Communist officials.

Mr. Tung said today that he was determined not to step down himself. "If I say I'm leaving my post, I believe that's irresponsible and will bring more uncertainties," he said. "For that reason, I must stay firm in my post."

Mr. Tung plans to fly to Beijing on Saturday for talks with China's rulers. His stance today would make it more difficult for Beijing to remove him without looking as though it is meddling in the politics of Hong Kong and backing down in the face of public pressures here.

Emily Lau, a member of the Legislative Council and the leader of the Frontier, a pro-democracy political party, said she wanted Mr. Tung to resign but did not want Beijing to become involved in Hong Kong's affairs. "We are not inviting Beijing to sack him, we do not want Beijing to interfere," she said.

A weak economy is further undermining Mr. Tung's efforts to hold on to his job. Mr. Tung discussed his plans at a news conference just an hour after the government announced that unemployment, already a record at 8.3 percent, had risen further to 8.6 percent for the period from April through June, mainly because of SARS.

The protest on July 1 was mainly about the internal-security legislation, which would have set long prison sentences for offenses like sedition or even the handling of documents that the government deemed seditious.

But after Mr. Tung said on July 7 that he would delay the security bill for at least a few days, speakers at rallies on July 9 and last Sunday called mainly for greater democracy.

Mr. Tung said this evening that he would allow ample time for public discussion of constitutional reforms over the next several years. But he declined to answer three separate questions about whether he felt that the next chief executive should be chosen by popular vote.

An 800-member committee dominated by Beijing appointed Mr. Tung in 1997 and reappointed him to another five-year term last year.

Ma Lik, the secretary general of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong, the largest of the pro-government and pro-Beijing political parties, said he thought Mr. Tung had done enough to address public concerns.

Mr. Ma, an outspoken backer of the security legislation, endorsed Mr. Tung's decision to call for further consultation of the public, saying, "To win their support is more important than to have a timetable to legislate."

[Giancarlo]

Lip service or something of real substance? I will wait and see what this yields.