Press Release

 

 

Speech by Secretary for Constitutional Affairs

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Following is the full text of the speech by the Secretary for Constitutional Affairs, Mr Michael Suen at the closing ceremony of the Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations 1999 Conference today (Tuesday):

"Asia at the Crossroads: Rising to the Challenges of Reform"

Madam Chairperson,

Many thanks for inviting me to deliver the closing address of this conference. It gives me great pleasure to have this opportunity of exchanging views with you all who have come to Hong Kong from all over the world. First, allow me to extend to you a belated welcome to Hong Kong.

In the past few days, you have heard many distinguished speakers talking to you about "Asia at the Crossroads" and how Asian countries rose to the challenges of reform, and specifically with respect to the financial crisis. I imagine that the subject of political reform must have been raised as an important factor in this connection. And today I am going to talk to you about political development in Hong Kong.

It seems to me that it has very much been taken for granted that Hong Kong would have a smooth and successful transition in 1997 from a British colony to a Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China. But the fact of the matter is what happened on 1 July 1997 brought about many fundamental changes in Hong Kong. A few notable examples are changes involving its sovereignty, its new found geo-political position with China, its political structure, and a new constitutional order. The successful transition did not happen by chance. It was the result of careful and meticulous preparation. China's basic policies regarding Hong Kong have been set out by the Chinese Government in the Sino-British Joint Declaration on the Question of Hong Kong, signed in 1984. That, if you like, provided the frame work for the future of Hong Kong after the transition. On the basis of that frame work, the details have been fleshed out in the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China enacted by the National People's Congress and promulgated in April 1990.

The Basic Law is in effect Hong Kong's constitution. It came into effect on 1 July 1997. It provides, among other things, for a blueprint of Hong Kong's political structure, and sets out our economic system including public finance, monetary affairs, trade, industry and commerce, shipping, civil aviation and so on. The Basic Law also provides for the relationship between the Central Authorities on the Mainland and Hong Kong. It sets out the fundamental rights and obligations of Hong Kong residents. It provides for Hong Kong to conduct our external affairs either on our own or under authorization. Article 5 of the Basic Law specifically provides that the previous capitalist system and way of life in Hong Kong shall remain unchanged for 50 years. It is clear that the stability provided by the Basic Law stood Hong Kong in good stead and was instrumental in enabling Hong Kong to weather the storms of the Asian financial crisis.

The Basic Law also lays down a road map for Hong Kong's democratic development. It provides that our Legislative Council shall have 60 seats to be returned by both direct and indirect elections. It also provides that there will be a progressive increase in the number of seats in our legislature to be returned by direct election from geographical constituencies. The composition of the first three terms of the legislature is set out in some detail in the Basic Law. What happens after that is left to us to decide at the appropriate time. And the Basic Law specifically provides, and I quote, that "the ultimate aim is the election of all the members of the Legislative Council by universal suffrage". I will be coming back to this point a little bit later. But for now, I will introduce to you the composition of the Hong Kong Legislative Council for the first three terms.

The Basic Law provides that 20 seats out of 60 in 1998, 24 seats out of 60 in the year 2000 and 30 seats out of 60 in the year 2004 be returned by direct elections from geographical constituencies. These constitute the first category of seats. There is then the second category of seats which involves a transitional arrangement, whereby 10 and 6 seats are indirectly elected by an Election Committee in 1998 and 2000 respectively. This form of election will cease in 2004. The third category involves 30 out of the 60 seats which are indirectly elected from functional constituencies. Functional constituencies are prescribed in law to include, inter alia, the professionals, commerce and industry and trade unions. Thus, for example, the lawyers have one seat, the doctors one seat, the trade unions three seats, the Chambers of Commerce two seats and so on.

Now, back to the point about what happens after the third term in the year 2004. The Basic Law provides for a mechanism whereby the method for forming the Legislative Council after 2007 can be amended. And again I quote "With regard to the method for forming the Legislative Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region .......... after 2007, if there is a need to amend the provisions (of the Basic Law), such amendments must be made with the endorsement of a two-thirds majority of all the members of the Council and the consent of the Chief Executive, and they shall be reported to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress for the record." It is, therefore, up to the community of Hong Kong to decide how much faster and how much farther Hong Kong should go in its further democratization. And we have eight years or so to prepare ourselves for this important decision.

The fact that the Basic Law clearly envisages gradual and orderly progress in our democratization process is very clear. In a pluralist society like Hong Kong, it should not come as a surprise to you that concern has been expressed by some in Hong Kong that the pace of democratization as set out in the Basic Law is too slow. Those who speak out on this issue do so, loudly and eloquently. However, opinion surveys conducted over the last few years have consistently shown a low level of interest in this matter in the community at large. And again it should not surprise you that their main concern is naturally about their own economic well-being in the wake of the Asian financial turmoil. It would be remiss of me not to put on record that the Legislative Council had held a number of debates on various aspects of this issue. However, they did not manage to achieve any consensus on the way forward.

I would like to take a small diversion here to give you a very brief discourse of the history of election to the Legislative Council. We did not have election of any kind before 1985, as all seats were either filled by ex-officio members or by appointment. And it was only in 1995, that is four years ago, that we finally saw the demise of appointed seats to the Legislative Council. The point I am making here is that we have a very brief history of elections to the legislature in Hong Kong. We are only starting to build up a tradition of participating in public affairs through elections. We have made a modest start. However, despite the very considerable resources we have put into this process, we still cannot claim any major breakthrough. Here are some of the facts. Barely ten months into the transition, we conducted elections to the first legislature of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in May 1998. There was a voter turnout of some 53%. Although we were very encouraged by this result as it was unprecedented in Hong Kong's history of elections we would have liked it higher. Elections to the second term will be held in September 2000. At the moment, we have a bill to give effect to the changes in the electoral arrangements as decreed by the Basic Law before the legislature.

Although the election is still more than a year away, we have already started our preparation for it. We are determined to achieve a higher voter turnout rate. To begin with, we will strive to get more people registered as voters, despite the fact that about 70% of all eligible voters have already been so registered. And we will intensify our publicity campaign to get more registered voters to vote. We do see the value of getting more and more people into the routine of exercising their political rights through voting. Bearing in mind that there will be another election for the third term legislature in the year 2004 we will be able to repeat that process one more time. What we hope to achieve through all these is a broadening of both the political horizon and vision of our community to a sufficient extent to enable them to decide how to take matters forward at the relevant time on the method for forming the legislature after the third term. Seen from this perspective, the time-table laid down in the Basic Law is eminently appropriate. Apart from this, I can think of two other considerations which make it clear that it is prudent to follow this time-table.

In the first instance, our political bodies will need time to develop and mature since none of them has a history of more than a couple of years. It is telling that some of these political bodies don't even feel able to call themselves political parties. And none of them claim membership of more than a few hundred. They are also hampered by the limited financial resources at their disposal, which mainly come from public donation. Their party apparatus and support services are in dire need of strengthening. Time is of the essence to bring maturity to the party system here in Hong Kong. Many of you in the audience come from different countries. If you cast your mind back to the early formative days of your own national legislative assemblies, you would get a sense of the long period of time it has taken to bring your own to what they are today. I am not suggesting that it will take our political parties a very long time, in terms of decades and centuries to develop into a stage with sufficient breadth and depth of membership to support a party hierarchy capable of providing viable alternative policy initiatives. Not at all. However, time, in terms of years, will definitely be needed and there is no short-cut to it. I believe that we would be doing very well if our political parties complete their initial metamorphosis within ten years.

The second point I am making is closely related to but separate from the above. My view is that if eventually our legislature is to be wholly returned by universal suffrage, the question of the method for its formation cannot be considered in isolation. We need also to consider that question in the wider context of the governance of Hong Kong. Here, we have an executive-led Government which is not formed by a majority party or by a coalition of parties. As a matter of fact, it is not formed by any party at all. The Chief Executive is elected but he does not belong to any political party and the Hong Kong Government does not have a single vote at its command in the legislature. We have to consider very carefully how progression to electing the legislature by universal suffrage will compromise the governance of a Government with no vote in the legislature and led by a Chief Executive who does not belong to any political party. Given this rather unique political structure, this will be a challenge of the highest order.

Ultimately, what the community of Hong Kong is looking for is a constructive and workable relationship between our executive-led Government comprising the Chief Executive and some 180,000 civil servants on the one hand and a legislature elected through universal suffrage on the other. Many stake holders are involved. The Administration will be expected to take a leading role in coming up with alternative proposals. In this exercise, the views across the political spectrum of the man-in-the-street, the political parties, the press, the academia and the professionals will have to be carefully canvassed. Time will be needed in good measure for developing a broad consensus as to how elections to the legislature should be organized after the third term of the Legislative Council.

Madam Chairperson, in closing, I submit that time is an important element in terms of a solution to effectively manage our political landscape after the year 2007 as laid down in the Basic Law. We need time to get more voters to participate in the electoral process, to get them more involved in the political process and to prepare them for taking the all important decision when the time comes. Political parties will have to do all they can within a very tight time scale to come to age in order to assure the community that they are able to earn their trust in them for greater responsibility. The longer the time scale the better their prospects. The Administration will need time for informed debate, for analysis of different views, for working out options, for mapping out the way forward and ultimately, for building a consensus. This is a very delicate and complex process, putting the resilience of our community under test, yet again. I am sure that, in due course, we will come out of it, richer by the experience, more confident of our own abilities to rise to any challenge and more united as a community.

I am grateful to you, Madam Chairperson, for providing this opportunity for me to flag all these up. Thank you very much.

End/Tuesday, June 8, 1999

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