Tung Chee-hwa Resigns as Hong Kong's Chief Executive

Billionaire Tung Chee-hwa made his money in shipping, and he probably should have stayed in the boat business. As Chief Executive of the former Crown Colony of Hong Kong, his brief was to implement the "one country, two systems" policy that Beijing claims it had for Hong Kong as a Special Administration Region of the People's Republic of China. Even without the SARS problem and the financial crisis of 1997, Mr. Tung faced a mission impossible. The people of Hong Kong want to run their own lives and their own city, while the communists on the mainland want Hong Kong to obey the central government just like every other place in the PRC does.

Mr. Tung came into office with a certain degree of goodwill. After Chris Patten and Prince Charles brought down the Union Jack and left, the people of Hong Kong were hopeful (since they didn't have much choice) that they might have a shot at something like democracy. With the East Asian currency crises that hit weeks after he took office, much of the hopefulness evaporated as the local economy tanked. His government was definitely anti-democratic in its actions, exemplified in the anti-subversion bill it brought out. Street protests have persisted, and when 300 people died of SARS while Mr. Tung's government did just about nothing, most people gave up on him.

Meanwhile, Mr. Tung had lost the backing of the Reds in Beijing. They had hoped that a rich man would be able to run the economy well enough to keep the people quiet. After 7 years, it is clear he couldn't (although it is doubtful the Beijing regime recognizes that no one could do that). Although his health was the pretext for his departure, Chinese President Hu Jintao had had enough back in December. On a trip to Macao, he said, "The officials must turn back and look over the past 7 years and find out what has gone wrong."

What has gone wrong is a problem now for Donald Tsang, Mr. Tung's deputy, a former colonial civil servant who happens to have a knighthood and a Catholic baptism certificate. But it seems he will only get two years to act. Under the fundamental law of Hong Kong, an election must be held within six months of the chief executive's departure, but Mr. Tsang is the front-runner. The problem is that Beijing may determine that the election is to fill the vacancy until the end of Mr. Tung's second five-year term. This would give the PRC two years to find a successor it liked.

"One country, two systems" was always diplomatic bollocks to give Maggie Thatcher some graceful way to hand over millions of people to a communist dictatorship. Martin Lee, a democracy activist in Hong Kong, summed it up nicely, "There's no longer Hong Kong people ruling Hong Kong, there's no longer a high degree of autonomy." With Mr. Tung gone, it is clear that Beijing will call the shots, and that President Hu and his mob aren't even going to try very hard to pretend otherwise.


© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
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