Awaiting A Democratic Hong Kong.
This is dissapppointing, but expected. I don’t think a statement from Beijing should dampen our requests and demand at all. It means we have to fight harder and make our showing for this is what is wanted, expected and needed in HK stronger.
Pro-democracy protest (APF)
HONG KONG : Hong Kong’s democracy movement suffered a major setback after Beijing effectively slapped down any hopes of full democracy within the next three years.
After three days of meetings with a Hong Kong taskforce charged with seeking the Chinese leadership’s views on universal suffrage in the city by 2007, the central government declared democracy would have to wait.
The government said it would have the final say on political change, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
“The high-degree of autonomy for Hong Kong meant self-governing under the authorization of the central government,” the Xinhua report quoted the government as saying.
“The political system of Hong Kong should meet with the legal status of Hong Kong as a regional administrative zone directly under the central government,” it went on.
The city’s status as an autonomous region within China was established during sovereignty negotiations between former colonial master Britain and China in the 1980s.
At the handover in 1997, it was decreed Hong Kong should be governed according to the principle of “one country, two systems”, meaning it could maintain its capitalist economy within the framework of a “one China” doctrine.
Tuesday’s declaration, however, stressed that maintaining “one country” was more important than preserving “two systems”.
“‘One country’ was the premise of ‘two systems’,” the Xinhua report said, “and it was the HongKong people with patriots as the main body that governed Hong Kong.”
The constitutional reform taskforce, led by Hong Kong’s top civil servant Chief Secretary Donald Tsang, was created by Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa early last month following street protests calling for a speedier transition to universal suffrage in the territory.
The chief executive is currently appointed by an 800-strong election committee approved by Communist Party leaders in Beijing and the legislature is only partly elected by the public.
Monday’s declaration was the most strident opinion offered by the Chinese leadership on the fate of democracy in the city since 1997 and it brings to a head a dispute that has been threatening since then.
It even took the moderate South China Morning Post newspaper by surprise, which said in an editorial that the statement was designed to dampen expectations of democracy.
It questioned the proviso that “patriots” should govern Hong Kong, saying this was not conducive to system of universal suffrage.
Fuelling the debate on democracy is the Basic Law, the city’s mini-constitution, which only prescribes the means for electing the chief executive and legislature up to 2007.
About elections after that, it is vague: it says the form of polls may be changed if there is a need to do so.
Democrats argue that there is a need for a change, while the government has maintained it will consult Beijing.
The Beijing leadership’s contradictory directives on the issue had until now kept everyone guessing on its stance.
“We are not surprised by this,” said Lee Wing-tat, a former legislator and election campaign manager for the Democrat Party, the leading pro-democracy group in Hong Kong. “There’s nothing here we had not expected.
“However, it does mean we have to ensure that democrats have a bigger impact in the September legislature elections — if we win a majority then Beijing will not be able to ignore us.”
Political science professor Joseph Cheng said he believed the declaration was made with one eye on Taiwan, which China considers part of its territory and fears is moving towards democratic independence.
“I don’t think there will be much progress in democracy in Hong Kong until after the Taiwan elections in March,” the City University academic said.
Eshin thanks for the heads up. I am off to buy the paper.
Yan Sham-Shackleton Online 
I’m glad to have a celebrity such as yourself browse me pages. By the way, you spelled my name wrong! 🙂
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Sorry about the name. I will deal with it tomorrow coz I just came home and I am heading to bed!
As for the celebrity thing, I hope you are taking the piss, coz if you’re serious I would be really really concerned that’s how anyone percieve me. Please don’t!
I just had this conversation last week, how if anyone came up to me and said, “Are you Yan from Glutter.” I would simply tell them “NO.” Coz it’s not my person I am interested in selling or promoting, as much as I would like my words and ideas to be taken seriously.
It was more in the context of “Fame” and “Confidence” how people who seek the first is searching for the second and how anyone who goes out there is looking for that. I thought it was an interesting idea, but I said, “What if you want making your name assosiated with your work and some level of reconition in that rather than you as a person?”
We ended up talking about something else, but I should follow up, coz I think when it was posed to me in such a way, I realized that was very much what I was doing. Like, in order for the work, may it be writing, photography or the film, it’s still attached to me, but I as in Yan don’t want the attention, but my work I very much want it to be known. Part of the reason I have always liked the internet, one minds and what one puts down are more thoughts than personal.
I have completely digressed but I have been thinking about it, coz I was also asked for an interview for something, and at once, I want this because it will give me credibility in what I do, on the other I dread all those, “Saw you in the paper” comments, which I occassionally got in the last year over various things. It’s always embarressing.
Yan
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Of course you probably meant ZERO in your comment, and I am just being pendantic over “celebrity” because to me it means very much a persona thing, a person of fame rather than a person of substance and known for what they do. I rather be that you like my writings!
Phew… done.
Yan
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Nope, I meant for you to take “celebrity” as a compliment. I find what you have to say interesting and while I might not agree with everything you say, it certainly makes me think. Like that “cheektouchers” comment, I agreed with your observation, but the way in which you handled certain things, might have been done a little differently. I guess that’s an example of how thoughts and the person are different.
Anyway, keep doing what you’re doing (you would anyway) ’cause it livens up my otherwise boring life. 🙂
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And yes, it is your thoughts I’m respecting with the “celebrity” comment. I don’t even know the person behind Glutter to make a valid judgement on you. 🙂 (sorry, this has all been off topic!)
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Thank you for all the lovely compliments, as I the greatest one and my personal favorite is always, “while I might not agree with everything you say, it certainly makes me think.” It literally makes me happy. 🙂
It’s the whole point right? Making people think, and I don’t expect -unlike some people I am about to go on to talk about- anyone to feel exactly the same way on every topic all the time. One of the driving forces behind Glutter is DISSENT.
Without it the world does not move forward.
On the other topic. I find it amusing that people have to have a say at how I “handled” that. I never hear of how the “other” people in that should have handled themselves, and I am not sure if people tell them.
Moreover and more importantly I don’t see anyone else saying it in the first place or bringing up the issue, although many people feel the same way, and I think until you (and that’s the French “vous” as in plural not you in singular) put it on one’s blog and have to deal with personal attacks of the worse kind, including the photos. I think it might be best to either try it yourself and show me a better way otherwise best to realize I handled myself very very well.
Keep coming I like long comments!
yan
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Well, it would be boring if we all thought the same thing about everything, wouldn’t it?
As to commenting on how other people have “handled” it, it’s not that I was singling you out, but to be honest, in most cases they were being overly sensitive, and childish. So why waste my time on posting up on their sites?
Although I did think one person’s response was amusing, short, and gave it the right amount of attention. But most people felt it was an excuse to go to war on it with you.
Anyway, I don’t think I need to open that can of worms for you again.
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I know what you mean.. I didn’t take any offence to it, just as you said it was an excuse to go to war with me. The first time it happenned I was really really sick, and I was going, “This is great! Here I am depressed and they are taking away the ONE SAFE SPACE I have!.
This time, again, I didn’t actually think about it. I was just BORED because it was raining!!
Anyway, as usual they sent me a whole bunch of new readers. So I think it’s nice and I should thank them. 🙂
Okie. Worms terminated. Something else will pop up!
Yan
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