The South China Morning Post recently revealed that a group of returnees, who were born in the mainland, educated in the West, and have financial backgrounds in Europe and the U.S., have formed a new political party, the Bauhinia Party in May this year. The founder of the party Li Shan is also a delegate to the national committee of the mainland’s top political advisory body, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), and serves as a director on the board of Credit Suisse. He plans to attract 250,000 party members and recruit people from all walks of life, hoping the new party will become the largest political organization in Hong Kong. In the current divided society, the party is attracting attention from the spectrum of all sectors.

The Bauhinia Party’s policy proposals include “striving for another 50 years of the one country, two systems principle guaranteeing Hong Kong’s way of life beyond its expiry date of 2047,” and “putting forward candidates for Legislative Council (LegCo) and the chief executive elections.” According to Hong Kong academic Simon Shen, this is Beijing’s attempt to “replace local proxies with its own people.” By accelerating the change of blood, the “new Hongkongers” can take over Beijing’s previous political and business alliances in Hong Kong, manifesting a “new era” for the city. Veteran Hong Kong journalist Ching Cheong shares the same view, saying that the Bauhinia Party represents Beijing’s distrust of the Hong Kong government, society and traditional pro-Beijing factions, and will therefore adopt “new Hongkongers to rule Hong Kong” as its future mode of governance.

Another veteran journalist Chan King Cheung believes that Beijing backs the establishment of a new political party to support the “executive-led” political line because it has failed to maintain its pledge to allow a high degree of autonomy in Hong Kong where Hong Kong people rule Hong Kong under the principles of one country, two systems. According to the American scholar Hung Ho-fung, the emergence of the Bauhinia Party represents a comprehensive transformation of the power system in Hong Kong by Beijing, and at the same time provokes a heated conflict among elites at all tiers of power in the post-national security law era. From these perspectives, the future landscape of Hong Kong has been broadly sketched.

In his book “The Power Elite,” American sociologist C. Wright Mills pointed out that political power in capitalist America is monopolized by elites of “the highest political leaders including the president and a handful of key cabinet members and close advisers; major corporate owners and directors; and high-ranking military officers.” However, the dynamics of social change have led people who were not originally in the elite group to work into higher circles through absorption and collaboration. Elites will inevitably take stock of the situation, embrace the rules of the game of social power, exercise power over the masses, and eventually become the main force in stabilizing the regime.

From Mills’ point of view, Hong Kong’s political power has long been held by “senior executive officials, consortium owners, and communists.” The communists include the government officials and traditional leftists who administer the city on the surface, and the underground party members that operate behind the scene. Although it is believed that the elites of the “Bauhinia Party” are representatives of Hong Kong’s huge underground party members, whether they necessarily represent Beijing’s will and become Beijing’s proxies in the new era of Hong Kong should be interpreted from three aspects.

First of all, why are these China-born businessmen establishing a new political party under the current political environment? While there is certainly a Beijing factor, the rapid changes in Hong Kong society over the past year have not only led Beijing to adopt a suppressive approach to governing the city, but also to politicize everything in Hong Kong. Under the continuous confrontation between the state and society, the financial elites and middle class who have integrated into Hong Kong and rely on the city’s international financial status have in fact become a voiceless and apathetic group. Those who accept Western thinking may not reject the way Hong Kong people fight for democracy, but it is not in their interest to continue the “laam chau” or mutually assured destruction confrontations. One of the effective ways to expand their voice in Hong Kong is through the formation of a party.

Second, Beijing’s high-handed approach against Hong Kong has prompted international countermeasures that have undermined Hong Kong’s status as an international financial center.  For these new Hong Kong elites, whether or not Hong Kong can return to economic prosperity, and secure its special status beyond 2047 is their main concern. This group of elites who are well-connected with the world naturally believe that, compared to the incompetence of the pro-establishment camp and the bickering of the democrats, they are the most representative of the city’s social values and the main force to stabilize the regime.

Finally, the impact of the epidemic has limited the movement of people between China and Hong Kong, and the pace of Hong Kong people’s emigration. According to recent public opinion polls, there is bound to be an exodus of people from Hong Kong in the future. But as some people leave, others will enter. The new immigrants from China will certainly not be the grassroots of the past. How to consolidate the foundation in the known trend and ensure that their own interests will not be lost in the future is the key. Therefore, when Beijing intends to start anew, it will naturally shoulder the responsibility to combine the characteristics of the power elite. Therefore, the establishment of the “Bauhinia Party” as the governing wing of Hong Kong is the biggest convergence between Beijing and the new political and business elites in the new era.

(Hsiao Tu Huan, Deputy Secretary-general of The Friends of Hong Kong and Macau Association in Taiwan and Assistant Professor of the Department of Politics at the Chinese Culture University)

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