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HONG KONG, TESTOSTERONE &
BIRTH OF THE ASIAN CENTURY
PAGE 7 OF 8
| Beijing's Hong Kong nightmare isn't seeing the democracy movement succeed but watching helplessly as corruption destroys Hong Kong's status as Asia's leading commercial center. |
bove all else what China's leaders worry about is that something
might happen to disrupt this highly productive business relationship--China
Inc and its wholly-owned marketing and finance subsidiary Hong Kong Inc.
Any sudden change in Hong Kong's unique dynamics would prove disruptive.
For example, the hollow democracy erected at Patten's instigation in the
Empire's dying days could have triggered rapid increases in governmental
and social welfare overhead, leading to higher taxes. Raising the current 15%
income tax would diminish Hong Kong's status as the global center of
hyper-capitalism and scare off some of its most important investors and
businesspeople.
By appointing as Hong Kong's Chief Executive respected shipping magnate Tung Chee-hwa--long beholden to China's state-owned business interests for a bailout of his family's shipping business--Jiang has signaled Beijing's hope of having its Special Administrative Region remain a business center rather than become a political football. The appointment was cheered by the Hong Kong establishment which has never wanted anything but to be left alone to enrich itself and, incidentally, China too.
Under Jiang's strict orders to change nothing, Tung invited the entire first rank of Hong Kong's highly regarded civil service to stay on, including Chief Secretary Anson Chan who ran the civil service under Chris Patten. Chan has shown sympathy toward Beijing's larger objectives and doesn't believe China's leaders will seek to interfere directly with Hong Kong. But by June she was expressing concern that Beijing's political appointees might court Chinese interference "either for misplaced motives or, worse still, for narrow, selfish, vested interests."
"Maybe some people feel that decisions affecting business are not in their interest," she elaborated. "They may feel they should go up and appeal to various leaders. That would be very bad for Hong Kong."
Some have interpreted Chan's statements as a demand that Hong Kong's day-to-day administration remain under her power as it had under Patten, suspecting a brewing turf war with appointed Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa. By early June Chan was publicly complaining about Tung's lack of "a really deep understanding of how government machinery works."
Turf war or not, Chan touched on one of Beijing's chief concerns. Without its highly capable, uncorrupted civil service Hong Kong could quickly lose its status as a commercial center. Any perception that China is letting corruption seep in in the form of influence peddling by Beijing appointees would quickly erode Hong Kong's economic value. Yet, the massive influx into Hong Kong of China's state-owned and quasi-state-owned enterprises--with their myriad ties to national, provincial and Communist Party officials--is denying Beijing bosses strict control over the kinds of corrupt practices that have begun to show up in Hong Kong. In fact, Beijing's Hong Kong nightmare isn't seeing the democracy movement succeed but watching helplessly as corruption destroys Hong Kong's status as Asia's leading commercial center. That's why even before the reversion Jiang signaled China's determination to preserve Hong Kong's civil service by stepping in to persuade Tung not to fire some top ministers who had publicly disagreed with Tung's policies. Jiang also backed Tung's decision to deny legislative standing to HKCEA--an association comprised of about 2,000 Chinese state-owned enterprises operating in Hong Kong--after Hong Kong businesspeople complained that a seat for HKCEA would suggest Beijing influence over the new legislature scheduled to be elected in 1998.
Given China's obvious desire to preserve Hong Kong as an uncorrupted capitalist haven, there would seem little reason for the U.S. to provoke China about the administration of its Special Administrative Region any more than China would want to provoke the U.S. over, say, Guam or Puerto Rico. Yet two weeks before the handover ceremony U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright announced she wouldn't attend the inauguration of the new Hong Kong government--scheduled to take place immediately following the handover ceremonies which she was scheduled to attend--to show U.S. displeasure at China for replacing Hong Kong's hastily elected legislature with a Beijing-appointed provisional legislature pending 1998 elections. When the Joint Declaration was signed between China and Britain in 1984, Hong Kong had no elected legislature, having always been governed by British appointees. Not until 1995, at Patten's instigation, did Hong Kong hold its first election. China has held--with some justification--that the election was void for violating the Joint Declaration which provides for Hong Kong's social system to remain unchanged until 50 years. PAGE 8
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