Fires of protest encircle Hong Kong's leader

By MARGARET HARRIS CHENG

Sweltering in the middle of the huge lake of people that formed in Hong Kong's Causeway Bay on July 1 to demand the end of Tung Chee-hwa's rule, a boy was heard plaintively asking his mother: "Do you think Tung Chee-hwa even knows we're here? He's probably taking an afternoon nap."

Last Thursday that boy got his answer. Still recovering from the forced resignations of his No 2, Antony Leung, and his strident Secretary for Security, Regina Ip, a haggard Tung told a press conference that the march drove away any thought of sleep.

"On July 1 I was glued to the television," he said. "The march gave me a huge shock. I couldn't sleep the whole night after."

Tung is facing a few more sleepless nights in Beijing as he explains to his masters how things have deteriorated so badly that the normally obedient Hong Kong people have taken to the streets in 30C heat and why a string of ministers have deserted him.

The loss of the ministers may not need so much explaining. Many believe the heads of Leung and Ip were demanded by Beijing as a means of calming the dissent in Hong Kong.

Much of the anger has been directed at these two. Leung, a former merchant banker, has presided over a failing economy and a property market that has lost more than 70 per cent of its value, and has developed no effective strategies to deal with Hong Kong's problems.

For many his attitude was summed up when he said: "The Government will only teach you how to catch fish, but not give you fish."

On an annual salary of HK$2.45 million ($539,667), many felt Leung was getting plenty of fish of his own and not doing a lot for it. When he then saved himself HK$190,000 ($41,738) on a new Lexus by buying it shortly before he slapped a sales tax on new cars, public disgust with Leung raged.

Ip, a gifted but arrogant civil servant, who saw pushing through the Article 23 Bill, a national security law aimed at protecting China from "subversion" originating in Hong Kong, as her greatest achievement, discovered this week that the bill was actually her nemesis.

A different personality would not have inspired such hatred. It was throwaway lines like "taxi drivers, waiters and McDonald's staff" are not capable of understanding the Article 23 legislation, and "some citizens may join [the July 1 march] as a kind of activity because it is a holiday" that really galvanised the anger and resentment felt over the way the Article 23 legislation was being forced through.

The Article 23 Bill is widely considered by legal experts, both in Hong Kong and overseas, as poorly drafted with too many vague definitions and excessive use of colonial wording permitting abuse of its provisions by a malign Government.

Despite much protest and criticism the Government refused to publish a white paper to allow the public to scrutinise the bill (this was when Ip used her taxi driver line).

This, with a farcical public consultation process and an absolute insistence that the Government would not be deterred from a July 9 deadline for getting the bill passed, made the people take to the streets on July 1. It was a last desperate plea to have their fears taken seriously.

But the protest was much wider. Three things were chanted over and over in Cantonese during the march: "Tung Chee-hwa step down" ; "Get rid of Article 23"; and "Universal Suffrage for next Chief Executive".

It is the latter that Beijing fears most. Pictures of the mass protest on July 1 and two later rallies were kept off mainland screens and out of newspapers.

But China's leaders are not kidding themselves. They know that if the protests continue, Hong Kong's pro-democracy groups - with names like "Complete the Sun Yat-Sen Revolution Peacefully" - might get their way.

Sun Yat-Sen evolved his ideas in Hong Kong before deposing the emperors in China. The country's present dictators fear China might once again catch the democracy bug from Hong Kong.

Everyone wore black to the July 1 march, to mark the death of freedom, but one particular black T-shirt was a little obscure. It read: "64-23=71".

This had nothing to do with Hong Kongers' legendary mathematical skills and everything to do with their desire for democracy. What it meant was June 4 (6/4 in American notation) - the date the Chinese leadership had the pro-democracy students massacred in Tiananmen - plus the removal of Article 23 was what the July 1 march was all about.

The Chinese leaders have reacted quickly, sending a range of officials to investigate and gauge the extent of the Hong Kong crisis. Some even took the unprecedented (and later denied) step of talking to the Democrats, Hong Kong's most electorally successful but officially outcast party.

Editorials appeared in Government-backed newspapers saying Hong Kong people had been misled into allowing their legitimate concerns about poor performance by the Tung Government be diverted to demands for democracy.

It seems the hope was that if some of the problems that so infuriated the Hong Kong populace could be dealt with, the furore might settle down and China's Government would survive another brush with democracy aspirations.

James Tien, leader of the very pragmatic Liberal Party, was called to Beijing two weeks ago. There he was told the Article 23 Bill was not so urgent. Stability in Hong Kong was.

It was an epiphany for Tien. He suddenly developed both a backbone and a hope that one day not too far in the future he might become Chief Executive of Hong Kong.

At the same time, his party members were being told by their supporters that voting for the Article 23 Bill would lead to electoral disaster.

While Tien was in Beijing, Tung was trying to rescue his credibility and shore up his chances of getting the bill passed. On Saturday July 5 he offered three amendments which he hoped would soothe the people's worst fears .

Tien, as a member of Tung's cabinet, was obliged to support the amended bill and it looked as if it would go through.

The protesters in Hong Kong who had marched on July 1 made plans to surround the Legislative Council building on the night the bill was due to be passed - July 9 - to let the world know it was being done against the will of the people.

But late on Sunday July 6, Tien heeded Beijing's advice - stability in Hong Kong mattered most. He resigned from Tung's cabinet, saying he and his party could not support the bill that week.

By the Monday morning, Tung had accepted the bill could not pass on July 9 and put it on ice.

But in an extraordinary failure to understand or respect the people who marched, Tung said this week there was nothing wrong with the bill. The problem was the people.

"Many of our citizens do not understand the contents of the bill," he said.

Tung revealed his most crippling failure. He sees the people of Hong Kong as a cross between naughty schoolchildren and forelock-tugging yokels, content to live in tiny spaces and accept the occasional crumb from his table.

In fact, surveys found the majority of adults who marched on July 1 were tertiary educated and following careers in business or the professions. By contrast, the people who surveys say support the Article 23 Bill are elderly men with primary education.

What this indicates is a generational change. Tung - who had an overseas tertiary education - and his elderly supporters are people who left China during her most violent years last century.

They are survivors who follow the first rule of survival: work out where power lies, seek protection from it and always respect those who have it.

The generation who marched on July 1 were born in Hong Kong, educated there and love their home, but not its rulers.

People who know Tung say he is not ready to step aside. Which may explain why, after promising to listen to the "aspirations of the community", he is beginning to show a new face.

The day after the July 9 protest, an early-morning traffic accident killed more than 20 people on a double-decker bus. By 10am, Tung - who took more than two weeks to meet the press after the Sars epidemic broke out - was on the scene.

It was an unusual sight. The typically aloof Chief Executive stood there - jacket off and tie loosened - talking about how sad he felt for the lives lost. Afterwards he paid a visit to a hospital, taking a doll for the 9-year-old girl who was the youngest survivor of the crash.

But it is hard to believe his political life could still be saved.

"This is a crisis of confidence in the leadership," says Eric Li, a Legislative Council representative. "But the cost of the mainland having to directly manage this problem will ... hurt Hong Kong in the long term."

To be sure, Hong Kong needs strong leadership more than ever. It is now posting a record-high annual budget deficit of US$8 billion ($14 billion), equalling almost 5.5 per cent of GDP and one of the highest in Asia.

But for all Tung's failings as a manager, his policies are not responsible for most of the territory's woes.

Some political observers admit that Hong Kong's biggest challenges - rising unemployment, falling competitiveness with other Asian cities and a Sars-exaggerated economic downturn - are forces that are beyond the control of any one person.

"The problem is, this gentleman has not done well," says Ma Lik, secretary-general of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong.

"But even if this gentleman steps down, it doesn't mean that the quality of life will be improved immediately."

Beijing, however, may be willing to give it a try.

China has just undergone a major leadership change and the senior figures are not those who selected Tung. They will be anxious to preserve their predecessors' "face", and replacing Tung would be an admission that choosing him was wrong.

But if it comes to a choice between keeping on a man now universally seen as incapable, and finding a way to put out the fires of protest, then Tung will go.