Sunday, July 6, 2003

HONG KONG, July 7 (Monday)-In a stunning victory for this city's pro-democracy opposition, Hong Kong's leader retreated in the face of huge street protests and agreed early today to delay an internal security bill that critics said threatened civil liberties in the only corner of China where residents are free to challenge the country's Communist government.

The surprise reversal by the city's chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa, was announced shortly after 2 a.m., following statements from Beijing urging Hong Kong officials to pass the measure as scheduled. Tung himself had promised as recently as Saturday to bring the bill to a vote this week despite the public outcry, which included a massive July 1 demonstration that attracted about half a million people.

But late Sunday night, one of the two main pro-government parties in Hong Kong, the Liberal Party, broke with Tung, exhorting him to delay the bill and allow more time to address the public's fears. The head of the party, James Tien, also announced his resignation from Tung's cabinet.

The defection gave a slight majority to pro-democracy lawmakers who opposed the bill. In an emergency meeting with his top aides that stretched past midnight, Tung chose to postpone a vote rather than risk an embarrassing defeat in the Legislative Council. "In light of the position of the Liberal Party, we have decided, after detailed deliberations, to defer . . . the bill and to step up our efforts to explain the amendments to the community in the coming days," Tung said in a brief statement. He offered no timetable for when he might try again to enact it.

As residents of this gleaming port city in southern China awoke this morning, the news spread quickly: Though they cannot elect their chief executive, or even a majority of their lawmakers, they had forced the government to back down simply by marching through the streets.

"This is a victory for the thousands who took to the streets in peace and courage," said Yeung Sum,chairman of the Democracy Party. The peaceful protests, which took place in sweltering heat on the sixth anniversary of the former British colony's return to Chinese rule, were the largest in China since Beijing crushed the 1989 student-led democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square.

Tung's retreat was an embarrassing defeat for the Chinese government, which had pushed him to enact the legislation and has suppressed news of the demonstrations in the mainland's state-controlled media.

Allen Lee, the former chairman of the Liberal Party and a Hong Kong deputy to China's national congress, said the episode showed Tung could no longer govern Hong Kong and urged Beijing to finally allow the city to elect its own leaders. "The call for democracy is very strong, and it will be coming in the next couple days," he said.

But Tung's failure comes at a sensitive moment in Beijing, where the new Communist Party chief, Hu Jintao, has been trying to consolidate power by sidelining allies of his predecessor, Jiang Zemin. It is unclear whether he is interested in promoting democratic reform in Hong Kong, or willing to bear the political risk of promoting such change.

Beijing has given mixed signals on the issue. Tien traveled to Beijing on Friday and reported that Chinese officials told him the timing and content of the legislation were up to Hong Kong. But the next day, when Tung pledged to push forward with a vote, the official New China News Agency quoted authorities urging Hong Kong to "complete the legislation as scheduled."

The bill was seen a threat to the autonomy promised Hong Kong after its return to China, and a wide range of critics had joined the local democratic opposition, including the Catholic Church and the Falun Gong spiritual movement, which both face repression in mainland China.

Several foreign governments, including the United States and Britain, also urged changes in the legislation, which outlaws subversion, treason, sedition and other crimes against the state. The bill would have eliminated some harsh regulations dating from British colonial rule, but critics worried that the Chinese government would use the new measure to intimidate or suppress dissidents.

Hong Kong's post-colonial constitution, agreed to by China and Britain, requires the city to adopt a national security law, but it also includes calls for democratic reforms, without setting a timetable for either. Democracy advocates argued a subversion bill should be adopted only after democratic elections for the chief executive and legislature.

The legislature, where most members are picked by pro-government and pro-Beijing groups and only a minority are directly elected, had been expected to pass the bill easily. But the measure soon emerged as a flashpoint for popular anger at Tung's poor management of the ailing economy and the SARS outbreak, and the public's frustration at not being able to vote him out of power.

This anger fueled the protests last week, which put pressure even on lawmakers representing small constituencies. Tung offered last-minute concessions, but protest organizers said the changes were insufficient, and threatened further demonstrations.

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