Elections, Political Change and Basic Law Government: The Hong Kong System in Search of a Political Form

Abstract

During the two decades preceding its 1997 reunification with China, imaginations in Hong Kong ran the gamut from fear to euphoria. Preparations for transfer from British to Chinese rule continued accordingly and Hong Kong's political development has been shaped by the conflicting imperatives responsible for those extremes. Most simply put, the imperatives grew from Hong Kong's fear of Chinese communism and China's fear of an anti-communist Hong Kong. Anxieties were greatest in the colony during 1982 and 1983, when Chinese leaders made known their determination to resume full sovereignty after the 1997 expiration of Britain's leasehold on 90 per cent of Hong Kong's territory. Apprehensions peaked again in 1989, following the military suppression of Beijing's student protest movement in Tiananmen Square. Yet fear also alternated with expressions of great bravado, when the dangers of latterday Chinese communism seemed to pale before the prospect of China's inevitable “Hong Kong-ization.” Between these two extremes, confidence levels waxed and waned as Chinese and British leaders responded, first by negotiating safeguards and then by writing them into law.