There are several hundred advisory and statutory bodies in the government structure in Hong Kong. Their formations are by means of government appointment of social elites to incorporate their views and/or administrative absorption of potential opposition to defuse their influence against the government. While, many of these bodies have considerable functional autonomy, none of them operates on a fully democratic franchise (Holliday & Hui, 2007, pp. 109). Also, it is found that the composition of the major advisory bodies has inclined to trade, business, finance, industry and professional sectors and under-represented the labour sector and pro-democracy political party.
Regarding the aspect of participation in elections and political parties, Hong Kong citizens are traditionally apathetic and play minimal role as these can be reflected from the high rates of abstention in Hong Kong’s elections and the small membership of the major political parties. Hong Kong people are “status quo” oriented which are characterized as materialism and utilitarian in their political orientation. However, seeing the vote shares of different political camps in direct elections and the public participations and expressions immediately after some critical debates such as the interpretation of the Basic Law by the National Peoples’ Congress Standing Committee on the right-of-abode in 1999, the Article 23 legislation in 2003 and the release of the fifth report of the Constitutional Development Task Force (Package of Proposals for the Methods for Selecting the Chief Executive in 2007 and for Forming the Legislative Council in 2008) in 2005, pro-democracy points of views are the majority and the vast public interests have strong mobilization and achieved a certain degree of balancing the administrative power of the HKSAR.
Hong Kong has a sizable and vibrant civil society involving in political actions, charitable donations, environmental issue and voluntary activities etc. Although it seems that the phenomenon of political participation id discouraging in the formal channels election and party participations as mentioned above, there are frequent public meetings, processions and demonstrations held every year since 1997 to protest against government policies or expressions of policy demand on political and social issue by various pressure/interest groups and NGOs. As Hong Kong people are granted full civil freedom and rights by constitution, such action orientated activities are regarded as a key factor in defending autonomy and liberty of Hong Kong after handover, Besides, the mass media have been pluralistic and flourish in Hong Kong (whatever in printing media, broadcasting media and internet) which play very important role in recent years. It is because both journalist and Hong Kong citizens have come to perceive them as an indispensable public forum, reflector of public opinion and monitor of government performance. Moreover, the media in Hong Kong are susceptible to the influence of authority and political and economic powers (Hong Kong’s core valves of freedom of press and speech). With the unique characters and functions, the civil society together with the mass media, which they are usually having their own agendas, can be frequently critical towards the government and effectively shape the public opinion which in turn to exerts pressure on the government to conform (Chan & Lee, 2007, pp. 155).
After briefly reviewing the patterns and dynamics of political participation in Hong Kong, it is worth to note that the current Hong Kong political system in which a partly-popularly-elected legislative co-exists with a non-popularly-elected executive-led government. The Central Peoples’ Government, which is renowned of its anti-politics stance, has hoped to confined the scope and speed of politicization in Hong Kong and such a depoliticsed stance is embodied in the Basic Law and subsequently elaborated in the Chief Executive Ordinance and in certain government policies. Meanwhile, the basic rationale of the HKSAR political design, by according little power to the legislature, is to exclude the representatives of the majority from the policy-making process and vest most powers in the Chief Executive and the executive branch which is not popularly elected (Ma, 2007, pp. 223). With most of the executive positions not open for electoral contestation, but rather determined by appointment, it is difficult for political parties to compete for power positions. Party politicians can only run for the office of Legislative Councillor, which is relatively powerless in the executive-dominant system of Hong Kong. It takes away a major incentive of forming and joining a political party and makes it difficult to attract talent to join parties. Within this institutional and political setup, HKSAR has discouraged the development of political parties and even affected the tendency of self-censorship of the media (editors, 2007, pp. 289).
Since the handover in 1997, HKSAR have been challenged of its legitimacy of the non-elected government and the governability of state-society conflicts from the civil society and the pro-democracy minority in the Legislative Council. It seems never end until full democratization and autonomy have appeared in Hong Kong. The occurrence of this phenomenon is due to a contradiction that Hong Kong people are granted full civil liberation by constitution but denied the fundamental political right of electing their government (Ma, 2007, pp. 224). It is an eternal legitimacy problem for the unelected SAR Government and the functionally elected Legislative members in which they are only transitional under the constitutional principle stipulated in the Basic Law. Nonetheless, the Hong Kong SAR government has long been arguing that its legitimacy did not rest with popular sovereignty but economic performance and administrative efficiency (Lee, 1999, pp. 40). This point in certain extent has been in consistent with the characteristics of utilitarianism and materialism of the Hong Kong people. Apparently, Hong Kong people adopt such utilitarian attitude towards democracy and see it as a means to realize practical, concrete objectives is inherited from the colonial legacy of economic success. Under this scenario, the HKSAR government and the central Peoples’ Government usually deploy economic ideology and measures to justify their government form of good governmental performance which has constituted the major beliefs related to social policy. As the Chinese ex-Vice President Zeng Qinghong said in June 2004 that economic development was the “eternal theme” of Hong Kong.
Indeed, the fact that Hong Kong is valued predominantly for its economic utility explains the China’s emphasis on economic measure in trying to win the mind and hearts and to alleviate the grievance of the local population and nurturing a sense of economic dependence on China. Moreover, such emphasis on economy has indirectly shaped Hong Kong into a place deprived of alternative visions of a better society except economic advancement. Simply speaking, this discourages the political participation in any style by making use of economic incentive and channels the public’s attention to other issues of more economic and social related than political one.
In summary, the detachment of the relationship between the executive and the legislative councils, government policies being biased towards the business sectors and economic-orientated, the political system being non-congenial to the development of political parties and not viable to nurturing a vibrant civil society as well as the institutional constraints preventing a more modern democratic political culture from evolving under the executive-led government in Hong Kong, it is more or less has discouraged political participation in order to avoid as mush the organization of popular resistance to a non-popularly elected regime as possible and lessen the challenges to the government legitimacy and governability from the public.
Reference:-
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Hague, R and Harrop, M (2007) Comparative Government and Politics: An Introduction, 7th edn, Basingstoke: Palgrave.
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Lam, W M, Lui, P L T, Wong, W and Holliday, I (eds)(2007) Contemporary Hong Kong Politics: Governance in the Post-1997 Era, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press
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Ma Ngok (2007) Political development in Hong Kong: State, Political Society, and Civil Society, Hong Kong University Press
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Joseph YS Cheng (1999) Political Participation in Hong Kong: Theoretical Issues and Historical Legacy, City University of Hong Kong Press
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