Hong Kong's Governance Under Chinese Sovereignty: The Failure of the State-Business Alliance After 1997 by Brian C. H. Fong

Author:Brian C. H. Fong [Fong, Brian C. H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Ethnic Studies, Social Science, Political Science, American Government, Regional Studies, General
ISBN: 9781317813798
Google: 8HlsBAAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 28026971
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-09-04T00:00:00+00:00

Electoral politics comes of age: the gradual introduction of elected seats into the Legislative Council since the 1980s

Apart from the fragmentation and decentralization of the economic power structures since the 1980s, the gradual development of electoral politics, which took place almost concurrently with the above process of economic transformation, has further shaken the political foundation of the traditional business representation system. The dominant feature of the traditional business representation system was that individual business elites would be directly appointed into the advisory system set up by the colonial state. But the smooth functioning of such a system was not only built upon the high concentration of economic powers in the hands of major British business groups, it was also facilitated by the closed political system during the British colonial time. Because of the absence of electoral politics for much of the colonial period, the senior executives of the princely hongs would be guaranteed their seats in the Legislative Council and Executive Council through the system of appointment and therefore there was no need for them to compete for political offices by means of contesting in elections and organizing political parties (Kuan, 1995).

Nevertheless, such a political formula was no longer workable after the gradual democratization of the Legislative Council since the 1980s. As part of its overall strategy to ensure an “honourable retreat” from Hong Kong, the British colonial administration introduced various reforms to democratize the political system in the territory in the final years of its colonial rule (Sing, 2003). The first wave of the reform was the incorporation of 12 functional constituency seats and 12 electoral college seats (the electoral college was formed by district board, urban council and regional council members) in the Legislative Council in 1985. Shortly after that, the colonial administration formally kicked off the democratization of the Legislative Council in 1991 by returned 18 out of the 60 seats to direct election in the geographical constituencies. In 1995 the last British Governor, Chris Patten, implemented further democratic reforms to the Legislative Council: the number of directly elected seats in geographical constituencies was increased to 20, nine new functional constituency seats were created which extended the electoral base to individual voters3 and the ten election committee seats were indirectly selected by the directly elected District Board members (Miners, 1998, p. 128a).

The gradual introduction of elected seats into the Legislative Council has brought about revolutionary changes to the political landscape in Hong Kong (Table 5.3). While the implementation of democratic reforms since the 1980s has yet to turn the Legislative Council into a full democratic legislative chamber, the process of democratization has opened up a new avenue for the development of electoral and party politics4 and resulted in fundamental changes to the relationship between the state and the business sector. Following the abolition of the appointment system, the senior executives of the major business conglomerates could no longer be assured of a seat in the Legislative Council as in the classical colonial era and the business elites

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