During the Great Purge on February 28 in Hong Kong, among the 53 people from different factions who were framed up in a serious criminal act of subverting state power, 47 of them were prosecuted. It is believed more are going to be politically implicated, so more are going to be barred from running in elections and taking up any post of public service. Meanwhile, Chinese Communist Party(CCP)’s media lashed out at Vivian Lau Lee-kwan, the Permanent Secretary for Food and Health(Food), unprecedentedly without veneering that from now on appointment of administrative officers(AOs) has to be approved by “two offices”(Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office of the State Council）. These political manoeuvrings have nothing to do with the anti-extradition movement, but the anti-extradition movement and Wuhan pneumonia provide the CCP with an opportunity to advance the time of winding up “one country, two systems”. The early arrival of 2047 has its necessity and fortuity.

The last mass migration wave took place between 1990 and 1997, which was caused by a great fear of the CCP, which was deemed not going to make good what they had promised by the people who voted with their feet. After 1997, the situation did not get worse rapidly. The Provisional Legislative Council stopped functioning after a year and gave way to an election. Such a compromising and conciliating policy was part of a general strategy adopted by the CCP in the first ten years from 1997 to 2007. A significant political move was to roll out an accountability system for senior officials to establish a so-called “Hong Kong’s cabinet” in an attempt to turn the AOs bloc headed by the Chief Secretary for Administration into mere figureheads. The 1st phase of political struggle ended with Anson Chan Fang On-sang retiring and Tung Chee-hwa forming the accountability team without a hitch to stretch his wings. Yet, with the Asian Financial Crisis persisting, number of negative equity rocketing, SARS attack and forcing through of Article 23 of the Basic Law that gave rise to 500 thousand citizens taking to the streets, the CCP had to strategically fall back again and promote Donald Tsang Yam-kuen to Chief Executive to form an AOs bloc to administer Hong Kong. During his tenure, the 2010 political reform, commonly-known as Super District Council, seats at the Election Committee ex officio and District Council Functional Constituency today, was achieved. The agreement was supported by the Democratic Party and academics from the Alliance for True Democracy, and approved by the CCP.

The grand chess game of the CCP today is to make a U-turn on the step-by-step development of democracy stipulated in the Basic Law. First, the discussion about the timetable and route chart of implementing universal suffrage has been put away. Not only has the step-by-step democratization been throttled, but also it has had to turn back. From 2014 to 2019, the CCP still continued with standard personnel change to promote Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor from the AOs bloc and persuad Leung Chun-ying from Tung Chee-hwa’s clan to step down in a bid to maintain the status quo. However, in the battle over the anti-extradition amendment bill movement, Carrie Lam set off fierce confrontations on the streets in which even moderate pro-democracy figures were radicalized. So, while the CCP was forcing through the National Security Law for Hong Kong, it was mapping out a plan to tighten its grip on political activities, completing at one go the political reform it wanted in the 90s but was yet to accomplish.

The general strategy is to fundamentally solve “the problem” by altering the system from stem to stern. First, pull back from the 2010 political reform by repealing Super District Council, seats in the election committee for district councilors and District Council Functional Constituency; second, withdraw from the 1998 electoral arrangement by forcing through a small-constituency double-seat single-vote system, so that the opposition camp cannot nab more than half of the 35 seats from direct election, while allocating the seats from Super District Council to surefire winners from pro-establishment organizations such as representatives from Chinese funded corporations; third, selecting the Chief Executive by consultations will also be considered. The objective is reset to ensure the LegCo perennially under the control of the pro-establishment camp, the possibility of 35+ eradicated, the civilization of British-style parliamentary annihilated, and the LegCo turning into a Chinese-style political consultative committee in which lawmakers can put forward questions, comment publicly, or vote against a bill, but are stripped of the authority to supervise, not to mention wrestling with executive organs by technically capitalizing on rules and regulations to hamper them from pushing through a policy. What Cheng Chung-tai and Pierre Chan are doing now in the LegCo makes them exemplary lawmakers for reference in the future. As for double insurance coverage, a political vetting mechanism will be introduced to keep public servants under surveillance so that they are subject to indictment, removal from office and deprivation of a seat in the legislature.

Since the power of the LegCo is limited in Hong Kong, which follows an executive-led system, whittling away its power to check and balance the administration is not adequate for putting the city under total control. So the notion of patriots ruling Hong Kong has to be extended to include civil servants so that the Liaison Office can take over the power to appoint and promote AOs. That’s why a political struggle against Lau Lee-kwan, who has just been promoted to Permanent Secretary for Food and Health(Food), has been staged in an attempt to seize the power of personnel management of civil servants. The power of appointment and promotion of judiciary personnel will fall prey next. Then the CCP is going to accomplish the reengineering of Hong Kong, which is to be turned from “one country, two systems” into “dual power” shared by the SAR government and the Liaison Office. Later on this year, the Party will take over the absolute leadership. After political parties, AOs, the media and the opposition forces are purged, Hong Kong will enter a period of stability. Will it? Or will it not?

With “one country, two systems”, a delegative democracy, as a bulwark and buffer gone, conflicts unable to be unleashed, checks and balances in the LegCo abolished, functions of making rational decisions performed by AOs abrogated, and a bunch of officials from another place who know nothing about Hong Kong taking the helm, will such a “great leap forward in governance” improve the administration? Will social conflicts be coped with in a civilized manner? Or with the power in ones’ grip not checked and balanced, will a new corrupt interest syndicate come on the scene? The answer is written on the wall.

(Lau Sai-leung, political commentator)

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