Democracy in Hong Kong

19th century In 1856, then governor Sir John Bowring proposed that the constitution of the Legislative Council be changed to increase membership to 13 members, of whom five would be elected by landowners enjoying rents exceeding 10 pounds. This attempt at an extremely limited form of democracy (there were only 141 such electors, of whom half were non-British) was rejected by the Colonial Office on the basis that Chinese residents had no respect "for the main principles upon which social order rests." Popular grassroots movements were regarded as being greatly discomforting by the authorities. When Asian workers rioted in 1884 after some of their number were fined for refusing to work for French traders, the Peace Preservation Ordinance was enacted, outlawing membership of any organisation deemed "incompatible with the peace and good order of the colony". Censorship was imposed on the press. The ordinance banned the free association of workers in unions, imposing restrictive bureaucracy on registration and stringent monitoring of meetings proposed. Post-World War II In 1946, shortly after the war, critical voices were raised against colonialism. Governor Sir Mark Young proposed a 48-member Municipal Council with significant competence to govern, one-third elected by non-Chinese, one third by Chinese institutions and one-third by Chinese individuals, known as the "Young Plan", believing that, "to counter the Chinese government's determination to recover Hong Kong, it was necessary to give local inhabitants a greater stake in the territory by widening the political franchise to include them." Alexander Grantham took over as Governor in 1947, after Sir Mark Young resigned due to ill health. Grantham, a civil servant of many years' standing, was not a supporter of democratic reforms in Hong Kong. Grantham considered Young's plan ill-conceived as he mistrusted the Chinese and doubted their loyalty to Britain and the Crown. He could not see the Young Plan changing that. 1950s When Mao Zedong's communists defeated the nationalists in the Chinese Civil War, democratic reform in Hong Kong was no longer a priority for London. The Foreign Office was concerned not so much that the Central People's Government would object to democratic changes in Hong Kong, but that Grantham's plan would give them reason to complain that the reforms were "undemocratic". British-educated lawyer and unofficial legislator Man-kam Lo revised the proposals of 1949 with much support from Grantham. This alternative to the Young Plan, at first approved by the British Government at the end of 1950, was then shelved in 1951 at the recommendation of the Foreign Office. The Foreign Office was concerned that reform at the height of the Korean War would trigger propaganda campaigns by the Communists and could be used by them as an excuse to reclaim Hong Kong. By 1952, the post-war recession began to take its toll on Hong Kong and the 1946 pledge of wide self-determination was forgotten. Grantham convinced London to scrap all plans for political reform on the basis that it did not "interest the British electorate". Later, when confronted by the Hong Kong public, he blamed London. All major democratic reforms for Hong Kong were dropped by British Cabinet decision. In October 1952, the British Colonial Secretary Oliver Lyttelton announced that the time was "inopportune for...constitutional changes of a major character". Democratisation of Urban Council Ultimately, however, Governor Grantham allowed minor reform proposals and, as a result, two pre-war existing seats in the virtually powerless Urban Council were directly elected in 1952; this was doubled to four the following year. In 1956, the body became semi-elected but on a restricted franchise, which had expanded from some 9,000 registered voters in 1952 to only about 250,000 eligible voters 14 years later. Eligibility reached about half a million in 1981 but only 34,381 bothered to register. Records declassified in 2014 show discussions about self-government between British and Hong Kong governments resumed in 1958, prompted by the Indian independence movement and growing anti-colonial sentiment in the remaining Crown Colonies. Zhou Enlai, representing the CCP at the time, warned, however, that this "conspiracy" of self-governance would be a "very unfriendly act" and that the CCP wished the present colonial status of Hong Kong to continue. China was facing increasing isolation in a Cold War world and the party needed Hong Kong for contacts and trade with the outside world. 1960s Liao Chengzhi, a senior Chinese official in charge of Hong Kong affairs, said in 1960 that China "shall not hesitate to take positive action to have Hong Kong, Kowloon and New Territories liberated" [by the People's Liberation Army] should the status quo (i.e. colonial administration) be changed. The warning killed any democratic development for the next three decades. 1970s In the absence of democratic legitimacy, the colonial government slowly implemented a system of formal advisory bodies, integrating interest groups into the policy-making process during the 1970s, which enabled grievances and controversies to be discussed and resolved. After the People's Republic of China was recognised as the sole legitimate representative of China to the UN in 1971, it successfully moved in 1972 to remove Hong Kong and Macau from the United Nations list of non-self-governing territories on the basis that the territories were "entirely within China's sovereign right", resulting in Hongkongers losing their right to self-determination under international law. 1980s Although full universal suffrage was never granted by the British to its colony before the handover in 1997, limited democratic reform began in the 1980s. Following the historic meeting in 1979 between Deng Xiaoping and then governor Murray MacLehose, the colonial government issued a 1984 Green Paper proposing more representative government, including indirect Legislative Council (LegCo) elections starting in 1985. While the Sino-British Joint Declaration stated that "the legislature of the [Hong Kong Special Administrative Region] shall be constituted by elections"; then British Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe gave reassurances, but progress slowed due to opposition from Beijing, local elites as represented by Executive Council, and the British Foreign Office under the pretext that it would bring chaos to Hong Kong. Instead, the government introduced 12 LegCo seats elected by “functional constituencies” representing sectors like finance, labour, and professions. Martin Lee and Szeto Wah, later to become leading democrats, were among those elected in 1985. Democracy activists – pressure groups, religious groups and community organisations – attended a mass rally at Ko Shan Theatre in Hung Hom in November 1986. The rally was a milestone in Hong Kong's fledgling pro-democracy movement. One of the participating groups, calling themselves the 'group of 190', demanded direct elections for LegCo in 1988, and a faster pace of democratic development after the Handover. As Xinhua stepped up its presence in Hong Kong by opening district offices, pro-Beijing forces worked actively to stifle the implementation of direct elections for the legislature in 1988 by initially identifying supporters, fielding candidates and targeting opponents aiming to win at the district board elections. The Hong Kong government was criticised for manipulating the views of Beijing-friendly groups to ensure that no clear mandate for direct elections in 1988 emerged. Following the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, and faced with concern over the Beijing government, support for establishment parties fell and pro-democracy parties' fortunes rose. Patten's push for reform was strongly opposed at the time by vested interests within LegCo and by former ambassador to China Percy Cradock. Patten's moves created a hostile climate that lasted until Hong Kong's handover to China in 1997. Nevertheless, Patten extracted undertakings from a PRC representative:How Hong Kong develops democracy (Remember that the people did not have democracy under colonization of the British) in the future is a matter entirely within the sphere of Hong Kong's autonomy, and the central government cannot intervene. — Lu Ping, (as quoted in the ''People's Daily'', 18 March 1993) The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs reiterated the following year that the democratic election of all Legislative Council members by universal suffrage was "a question to be decided by the Hong Kong SAR itself and it needs no guarantee by the Chinese Government". ==Post-1997==