Is China trying to influence Hong Kong’s legislative elections?

Producer: Yvonne Gomez
First broadcast: 9 September 04, Radio Singapore International

China has reportedly played up recent scandals in Hong Kong involving pro-democracy candidates.

One of them involved the arrest of Democratic Party candidate Ho Wai-to, for hiring a prostitute.

This has invited criticism that by doing so, China could be trying to suppress the pro-democracy movement in the special administrative region.

For more on the possibility of China’s influence in Hong Kong’s legislative elections, Yvonne Gomez spoke to Assistant Professor Rowena Kwok from Hong Kong University.

RK: We’ve heard comments, suspicions and rumours. Of course, in some quarters, there is a feeling about these scandals; the way they broke out, the way they happened one after another, they way they differed from our previous elections. So there is a suspiciom among certain quarters in society that all these might have been organized. We don’t know whether they are, indeed, organized, and if they are organized, by whom. The only thing we can say is this is very different from our previous elections, all of which, throughout the years, have turned out to be pretty clean and relatively free of such scandals

Hong Kong’s legislature has reportedly been dominated by pro-China lawmakers since the handover of power from the British in 1997. What would be the consequences for China, if this was to change?

RK: Probably it is widespread but I would like to suggest that it is a mistaken impression. It is true that in the legislature, there are many pro-China and pro-government legislators but that doesn’t allow us to jump to the conclusion that if therefore, the pro-democratic party or politicians get into the legislature, then it would affect either the government’s policy agenda or the Chinese government’s policy towards Hong Kong. As a matter of fact, I’ve recently conducted an empirical study in which I studied devoting records of legislators. Actually to my surprise, directly-elected legislators, the majority of whom we know are the so-called pro-democratic legislators, their voting records show that in the great majority of the time, they did not disagree with the government’s policy motions in the legislature. In fact, a lot of the time, they voted in support of the government.

If China is indeed trying to influence the outcomes of Hong Kong’s elections, what can you say about China’s tactics, like the so-called “smear campaign” to call attention to a scandal involving a pro-democracy candidate who’s been jailed for hiring a prostitute?

RK: If these campaigns are organized whoever is organizing them, or is behind such campaigns, has probably adopted the wrong strategy. Given the majority and the high quality of the Hong Kong electorate, as a matter of fact, among the Hong Kong people, they may feel a little downcast by such scandals, that our elections should be smeared by such scandals. On the other hand, in many quarters, there are suspicions about the proof of such scandals. For example, the particular example that you just mentioned…we’ve only heard the side of the story from the security people. We haven’t really been able to hear from the candidate himself. Hong Kong’s people, many of them, have this question in mind, that why is it we haven’t seen evidence and haven’t been able to hear from the accused. And therefore by adopting this strategy of a smear campaign, then it would drive away people. It’s too early a conclusion to jump to.

How do all these affect China’s promise of “one country, two systems” in its dealing with Hong Kong?

RK: I think, so far, everybody who talks about Hong Kong, agrees that we have several pillars that keep Hong Kong afloat, like fairness, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, free and clean elections. Hong Kong has been very proud of these, and if these central pillars for Hong Kong’s success were to be encroached upon, or to be affected adversely, then of course it makes a mockery of China’s grand design of “one country, two systems”. This is because the principle reason behind this system is to sustain Hong Kong’s unique characteristic among all the cities in China.

There seems to be growing support for democracy among Hong Kong’s residents, so China’s distrust of democracy may be justified. It may eventually lead to the implosion of communism in China, the same way it did in the former Soviet Union. How likely is this to happen?

RK: If you take into consideration the democracy in the previous Soviet Union, it was actually a top-down campaign. Given societies like China, which are relatively closed, where people don’t have a lot of information, a great majority of people are farmers and belong to the agriculture sector. The state of the society does not allow quick democratic movements to take shape. Perhaps the quest for democracy might not be that strong, and to suggest that democracy in Hong Kong will then lead to an implosion on the mainland – I think that’s too simple a picture to put.