Written Evidence submitted by Louis Yuen and Andrew Leung on behalf of the Asia Public Affairs and Social Services Society, The University of Manchester (HNG0549)

Introduction:

1. The Sino-British Joint Declaration promises that Hong Kong shall enjoy a high degree of autonomy under one country two systems. After the end of the Second World War, many of the former UK colonies achieved democratic rule, but as FCO 40/160 and FCO 40/327 show at that time UK economic interests and opposition from Beijing prevented democratic changes to take off in Hong Kong. This put democratic process in Hong Kong to a temporary halt. The very limited democracy which Hong Kong enjoys today has been due to the efforts since the late 1980s, and these are the very elements China is seeking to distort by lobbying for local candidates and using business connections to persuade elites to vote for a particular candidate. Freedom of expression and independent media face numerous challenges as authorities tighten their grip on journalists, curtailing the demonstration by excessive use of force as the recent umbrella demonstration shows. In terms of legislature, our evidence shows that through legislature, electoral design and uneven resources distribution, the pro-government forces are able to influence policy-making disproportionately to their representation. We recommend the freezing of assets as well as refusing entry of certain high-rank officials in Hong Kong and China into the United Kingdom as the first step.

Part I: Political Interference in internal affairs and the growing threat to Hong Kong People’s rights and freedom

Introduction

2. The Sino-British declaration, the international treaty which sets the framework for the implementation of “One country, two systems” in Hong Kong guarantees that  the city remains unchanged under a liberal, capitalist, common law system with a high degree of autonomy. However, 17 years after the handover, evidence has proven Beijing’s violation of the treaty.

Blatant interference from the Central People’s Government
 

3. HK Basic Law Article 22 states that “No department of the Central People's Government (hereafter CPG) and no province, autonomous region, or municipality directly under the CPG may interfere in the affairs which the Hong Kong Administrative Region administers on its own in accordance with this Law”[1] . However, the CPG has seriously interfered in Hong Kong’s internal affairs, which was particularly visible during the last elections of Chief Executive, through the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government of Hong Kong (hereafter the Liaison Office).[2] Besides, the White Paper published by the Central Government in June 2014 reinterpreted the one country-two systems’ concept, which made Hong Kongers generally agree that the CPG is going to diminish their freedom, jurisdiction, and also autonomy.

Undemocratic Chief Executive Elections
 

4. The Hong Kong Chief Executive Election is unrepresentative in which the head of the region is chosen by a 1,200-member committee, with the numerical majority of pro-Beijing loyalists.[3] As the election is completely under the CPG’s control, the Liaison Office has never hidden their active involvement in Chief Executive Elections.
 

Election 2005
 

5. In 2005, the former Chief Executive, Donald Tsang, was already appointed by Beijing to be the successor to Tung Chee-hwa before  the end of his term. According to the former Chief Secretary Rafael Hui’s testimony, Mr. Tsang told him that the CPG wished he got a high number of nominations and he could not change the officials in the next term. That year, finally, Mr. Tsang gained more than 700 nominations and was the only official candidate of the election.[4] As his testimony clearly shows, the CPG manipulated the election of the Chief Executive by controlling the whole election committee.

Election 2012

6. The CPG’s interference became even more obvious in 2012’s Chief Executive Election. Many election committee members and media revealed that they had received calls and messages from the Liaison Office trying to order them to support a designated candidate. At the final stage of the election, they even “adopted a high profile in lobbying members of the Election Committee”.[5] Intense criticism was aroused when CY Leung, the current Chief Executive, visited the Liaison Office soon after his victory, claiming that he was personally thanking the CPG for their canvassing support.

Exploitation of human right and freedom

7. The Basic Law Article 27 guarantees civil and political rights alongside social, economic and cultural rights in Hong Kong.[6] These rights have been Hong Kong’s core values with the progression of the society. Unfortunately, many events show that these rights and freedoms have been gradually eroding in the recent years.

Right of protest
 

8. Protests happen more frequently after the Handover, especially after the selection of CY Leung, and the relationship between protesters and the police has become more tense. Police have started to hinder demonstrations and prosecute leaders of the protesters.[7] Recently, Civil disobedience occupation, and boycott of classes for democracy have begun. Their requests, however, have been bluntly refused and the government has viewed the peaceful, non-violent Hong Kongers as an angry mob of protesters. The leader of the pro-democracy group Scholarism, Joshua Wong, was arrested, denied bail and kept in custody for over 40 hours without proper reasons. Students were brutally cracked down by the Hong Kong Police by pepper spray or tear gas with thousands injured. This has never happened before.

Intimidation of free and independent press
 

9. Threats towards the media and restriction of press freedom have increased since the Handover. Interruptions during interviews and violence towards journalists have happened more frequently in recent years. Furthermore, the ranking of Hong Kong in the world press freedom index has sharply dropped from 18 to 61 in twelve years. Also, the first Hong Kong press freedom index announced by HK Journalist Association (hereafter HKJA) is only 42.0. Both indexes clearly indicate the deteriorating press freedom in Hong Kong. HKJA even described the situation as the worst ever.[8]

The increase of interference with journalist practices

10. Many times after the mass-demonstrations, for example the trial of Occupy the Central on 2 July 2014 and the protest outside the Legislative Council against the development of North East Territories of Hong Kong, several front-line reporters reported to the HKJA that the Police had requested them to leave the demonstration area, set up iron railings to separate them from the demonstrators or even arranged very limited area for journalists far from the nuclei demonstration area, which hindered the journalists from performing their duties.[9] In other words, these Police actions are restricting the freedom of press.

Attacks against journalists

11. The number of attacks has significantly increased since 1997. Attacks against journalists mostly happen during demonstrations by pro-establishment protesters or even police. For instance, in a protest supporting the police while they were being criticized by the public, a photojournalist from Next-media was beaten by a retired police sergeant. HKJA criticized Hong Kong police as they ignored the beaten journalist who was seeking help at that moment.[10]

12. In February 2014, an actual attack was carried out directly against the press media. The former Editor in Chief of Ming Pao, Kevin Lau Chun-to, was attacked by two men with meat cleaver in broad daylight. Serious stab wounds were left on Lau's back and leg by the attackers. Many media companies, journalist associations and Hong Kong citizens held a vigil calling for the safeguard of democracy.

Part II: Electoral Reform, Bills in Legislature, Electoral components and Actual Election Outcome

Bills in Legislature

13. There are two different bills in the Legislative Council – The Government Bill and the Member’s Bill. The government substantive bills would only require the simple majority of the council to be passed, procedural bills (Bills related to the amendment of Basic Law and Rules of Procedure) would require a two-third majority.[11] On the other hand, Member’s Bill would require a simple majority in both of the constituencies.[12]

14. The design of the different bill system quite severely restricts the tabling of a bill by member of the legislative council, who is supposedly more representative than the government since the government in Hong Kong is not democratically elected.

III. Electoral Components

15. There are four main types of voting in Hong Kong, and they are:

16. District Council Election – The Pro-Establishment are often able to secure a majority of seats by receiving donations from the pro-China enterprises and related bodies[13]. Their victory in district council secures votes in subsequent legislative councils[14].

17. Legislative Council Election (Functional Constituency) – The functional constituency is something of a legacy from the colonial rule, the formation of constituency is dispersed and lacks a concise argument as to why in particular are those particular industries a constituency while the others are not, as well as its member formation. The legitimacy[15]of a constituency ranges from 132 voters to 88,694 voters being represented by a councilor[16]. 

Legislative Council Election (Geographical Constituency)

18. The Legco election takes the format of Proportional Representation, but since the actual number of seat vote ratio is large enough, it can quite literally be considered as a multi-seat single vote system. Below is an outline of some basic estimation from the Legislative Council Election in 2012[17].

Comparison (NW)

Comparison (NE)

Comparison (KW)

Comparison (KE)

Comparison (HKI)

Seat number disproportioned:
Pro-establishment:1.13-0.88+0.14+0.77+0.84= 2 Seats
Pan-democrats0.88-0.14-1.13-0.77-0.84=-2seats
Vote number disproportioned:
Pro-establishment: 55401x1.13(NW) 51638x0.88(NE)+46414x0.14(KW)+56956x0.77(KE)+47252x0.84(HK)= +107207 votes

Pan-democrats:
51638x0.88(NE)-55401x1.13(NW) -46414x0.14(KW)-56956x0.77(KE)-47252x0.84(HK)= -107207 votes

19. We may observe that the above figures show that, there is a clear misrepresentation of votes in accordance to the intent of voters, in the majority of areas, the side who has a larger remainder continuously fails to win the seat, and it is possible to suggest that the congress report and aforementioned academic journals also quite adequately explain this by resources disparity.

Chief Executive Election

20. The tables below outline the actual formation of election committee, the attention is to be paid towards the choice of sectors, as well as their voting weight in actual CE election outcome:[18]

Composition of the 1,200-member Election Committee when the term of office commences on 1 February 2012 Note:

38 Election Committee Subsectors:

21. We pay attention to how Beijing might influence decision of voters in the subsectors by asking the following questions:

1)     Why  should the agriculture and fisheries subsector gain 60 seats compared to 30 allocated to the  higher education, given that Hong Kong’s economy is evidently more knowledge-based than agriculture and fishing-based?

2)     Why should the business and professional sector be taking up such a heavy weight in committee given that they may be have business relations with China, which creates bias in process as China may be able to influence their decision indirectly?

3)     Given that in Hong Kong most people are living without a particular religious belief, why shall there be autonomous places for religious bodies?

Electoral Reform Bill

22. Currently, reforms are being introduced in both Legislative Council Election and Chief Executive Election, but neither receives warm welcome from the majority.

Legislative Council Election

23. Report has it that the government is planning to redraw the electoral boundaries from five to nine districts, changing the “Proportional Representation” to a more divided design.

24. Pro-Government lobby claims that offers a clearer client-patron relation, but since the government in Hong Kong is executive-led rather than legislative-led[19], this would effectively marginalise all other participating parties that are not considered to have the manpower and resources to compete with  big parties[20], without the legislative council reflecting the opinion of the minority.

Chief Executive Election

25. As introduced by The Hon. Anson Chan, the next Chief Executive election is a modified version of what is currently at hand. There are following differences:

1)     The election committee would become the nomination committee, with a nominee needing a simple majority of nomination to become a real candidate.

2)     The public will then cast their vote on the qualified candidates, and the one with the highest number of votes wins.

26. We may have the following questions:

1)     How transparent and accountable shall the committee be to the public?

2)     To what extent is the committee broadly representative if the voting basis of each subsector is significantly divided?

3)     How will the spectrum of candidates be different given that a member of committee is unlikely to nominate someone very different to whom he has nominated in the first place, that even if each member can nominate two candidates, how much would the candidates be different?

27. At this very timing of writing, the People’s National Congress has decided that a simple majority is needed from nominating committee to put forward a candidate, and the second part now comes to the formation of committee, but the public is not overly optimistic about it.

Part III: Recommendations to the UK Parliament

28. The Parliament, after reviewing all the relevant evidence, may consider the following action:

• Formal Protest to the Consulate General of China in United Kingdom

• Restrictions on entry into United Kingdom on a number of middle ranked officials in China who are directly related to the governance in Hong Kong, as well as officials in Hong Kong as well as freezing some of their assets in the UK  (EU’s approach to Russian Officials in Ukrainian Conflict)
   
• Economic sanctions/increase in tariff on certain number of goods imported from China (Cars, Luxurious Goods, Agricultural Products, Food, these products are generally less dependent on supply of China and may be considered as a symbolic form of protest) (EU’s approach to Russian Officials in Ukrainian Conflict)
   
• Address the UN Human Rights Subcommittee, World Court of Justice for a ruling on China’s obligations to Joint Declaration, although non-binding.
   
• Cancel/Postpone a number of cultural/sports events directly engaging with China
   
• Rename certain geographical locations (Streets, Building Name) that are associated with China or Chinese Embassy to issues pertinent to China (Liu Xiao Bo street, Democracy Street) A method proposed by Senators in US

October 2014