And, for a change, it’s relatively good news.
Facing the spectre of the collapse of “one country, two system” and imposition of Beijing-style subversion laws on Hong Kong, there have been been massive street protests in HK, leading — amazingly enough — to the the bill being dropped — for now.
Hong Kong leader Tung Chee-hwa, reeling after last week’s massive show of people power, postponed a vote on a controversial anti-subversion bill on Monday after losing the support of a key legislative ally.
The stunning climbdown is likely to embarrass Tung’s backers in Beijing and raise fresh questions about how much longer the embattled chief executive can govern one of the world’s key financial centers, analysts said.
It is also expected to fuel demands for greater democracy in Hong Kong, where half a million people marched last Tuesday to denounce the security bill and demand freedom to elect their own leaders.
Bully for them.
Of course, if it were internal to the PRC, Beijing would simply send in the troops. (Of course, if it were internal to the PRC, Tung would be in prison, dead, or off in a re-education camp.)
Beijing’s next steps will be interesting to see. Taiwan is already backing away from reunification talks, in the face of these shenanigans. The Chinese government cannot afford to seem weak, or cow-tow to (heavens) popular protest, but unless it is willing to send in the tanks, it doesn’t have a very good face-saving immediate response.
Tung’s announcement came just two days after he had agreed to water down some of the law’s most contentious provisions. But critics say the bill is still too vague and poses the biggest threat to freedom in the former British colony since it reverted to China in 1997. They want clearer definitions for treason and subversion, which would carry life jail terms.
Tung said the government would step up efforts to explain the legislation to the public, but insisted that it was constitutionally obliged to enact it. He did not say when the bill would be resubmitted. But the government plainly does not want the corrosive issue to drag into 2004, when it could give a major boost to pro-democracy candidates running in Legislative Council elections.
Postponing the bill would cool political tensions but “further cripple the government’s authority and undermine public confidence in the Tung team,” the South China Morning Post said.
Long-term, Hong Kong is probably doomed as a relatively free society, unless something radical happens in the PRC. This immediate set-back, especially if handled delicately by Beijing, means only that further changes will come more incrementally — boiling the frog, as the story goes — rather than in one, ill-advised, fell swoop.
As for Tung — I still wouldn’t want to be in his shoes, whichever way this plays out.