11/30/2002

Martin Lee is due to step down as head of the Democratic Party of Hong Kong tomorrow. Under his eight-year chairmanship, it has consistently won the highest number of directly elected seats to the Legislative Council (Legco). Mr. Lee can thus be considered the most popular politician in what since 1997 has been a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China. Sadly, the system is heavily weighted against him and his party, with only 24 of Legco's 60 members being directly elected. Mr. Lee, a quietly tenacious barrister, has been fighting a rearguard action against increasing Chinese encroachment into the autonomy of Hong Kong, and nowhere more so than over the consultation document on a proposed security law unveiled by the government in September.

The Basic Law of Hong Kong, passed by the Chinese parliament, states that the SAR will enact legislation on treason, secession, sedition and subversion. But the proposals contained in the consultation document are geared to pleasing the Communist Party in Beijing rather than preserving the freedoms promised Hong Kong in the Anglo-Chinese Joint Declaration of 1984. For example, the section dealing with treason defines one of its manifestations as putting "constraint" on the mainland government, an undefined term which could be used to crush peaceful protest. It also revives the archaic offence of misprision of treason, that is, failure to inform the authorities of treason being committed by someone else. The proposals on the theft of state secrets threaten to curtail freedom of information in a territory which remains an important regional base for the media. Those proposals on foreign political organisations, which would ban bodies affiliated to groups already proscribed by Beijing, could hit Falun Gong and Christians who send money to illegal churches on the mainland.

Official assurances on the maintenance of rights and freedoms fail to convince. The government has not published a draft Bill with the consultation paper, leaving unclear the exact form of legislation to be put before Legco next year. The tendency of Tung Chee-hwa, Hong Kong's chief executive, is to play it safe, which means reassuring a Communist Party chronically nervous about any challenge to its authority. [...]