Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
07HONGKONG1691
2007-06-25 06:48:00
CONFIDENTIAL//NOFORN
Consulate Hong Kong
Cable title:  

U.S.-CHINA COMMISSION VISIT TO HONG KONG:

Tags:  PREL PGOV PINR CH HK 
pdf how-to read a cable
VZCZCXRO4519
PP RUEHCN RUEHGH RUEHVC
DE RUEHHK #1691/01 1760648
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 250648Z JUN 07
FM AMCONSUL HONG KONG
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 2069
INFO RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEHOO/CHINA POSTS COLLECTIVE
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 HONG KONG 001691 

SIPDIS

NOFORN
SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR EAP, EAP/CM
NSC FOR DENNIS WILDER

E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/25/2032
TAGS: PREL PGOV PINR CH HK
SUBJECT: U.S.-CHINA COMMISSION VISIT TO HONG KONG:
PRO-DEMOCRACY LEADERS

REF: HONG KONG 01689

Classified By: Acting DPO Laurent Charbonnet; Reasons 1.4 (b, d)

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 HONG KONG 001691

SIPDIS

NOFORN
SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR EAP, EAP/CM
NSC FOR DENNIS WILDER

E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/25/2032
TAGS: PREL PGOV PINR CH HK
SUBJECT: U.S.-CHINA COMMISSION VISIT TO HONG KONG:
PRO-DEMOCRACY LEADERS

REF: HONG KONG 01689

Classified By: Acting DPO Laurent Charbonnet; Reasons 1.4 (b, d)


1. (C) Summary: During April 29-30 meetings in Hong Kong,
Civic Party legislator and March 2007 candidate for Chief
Executive Alan Leong told a visiting delegation of the
U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC)
that his campaign had laid the groundwork for the Hong Kong
people to "have a free election next time." Leong said the
"challenges ahead" for the pan-democrats included
consolidation of their achievements and attainment of
universal suffrage as soon as possible, although he believed
Beijing had been sending "messages" that 2012 was too early
for universal suffrage. In another meeting, several
pan-democratic Legislative Council (Legco) members told the
delegation that the general political situation in Hong Kong
was "getting worse," with the Hong Kong Special
Administrative Region Government (HKSARG) gaining a tighter
hold on the media and opinion polls while the "conservatives"
worked to limit progress toward universal suffrage.
Democratic Party Legco member Martin Lee believed the impetus
for this obstructionism came from Beijing, which had been
leery of the pan-democrats since the Article 23 (national
security legislation) fiasco of 2003. In an April 30 dinner
meeting with several democracy and human rights activists,
Confederation of Trade Unions leader and Legco member Lee
Cheuk-yan said central government attitudes and policies
toward the HKSAR provided a useful indicator of Beijing's
domestic policies; if they did not allow progress toward
democratization in Hong Kong, then they certainly would not
do so in the mainland. Lee and others in the group were
pessimistic about the planned mid-summer publication of
recommendations for political reform by the
government-appointed Commission for Strategic Development
(CSD). End Summary.

Alan Leong
--------------

2. (C) On April 30, Civic Party legislator Alan Leong, the

pan-democratic candidate for Chief Executive who was defeated
by incumbent CE Donald Tsang in March, told the visiting USCC
delegation that he had achieved "what he set out to do." He
said he was "not in the race to get the job," because he knew
the system was "rigged," but rather wanted to lay the
groundwork for the Hong Kong people to "have a free election
next time." Leong gave credit to Tsang, whom he said easily
could have declined to participate in the two pre-election
public debates. Leong said his candidacy had "benchmarked a
minimum" for what the Hong Kong people expect from the CE
election, including televised debates and articulation of
platforms. Leong said post-election polls showed that 70-80
percent of the people held positive views of his
participation in the process.


3. (C) Leong said the "challenges ahead" for the
pan-democrats included consolidation of their achievements
and attainment of universal suffrage as soon as possible.
For the next scheduled CE election in 2012, Leong said
Beijing had been sending "messages" that 2012 was too early
for universal suffrage, and he believed the central
government would continue to employ its "old tactics" to
stall the process. He believed CE Tsang would continue to
prefer to "keep the status quo rather than rock the boat.
Both the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government
(HKSARG) and its pro-Beijing supporters wanted to "reform "
the electoral system in ways that would "screen out"
pro-democracy candidates; for example, Leong cited a recent
suggestion by Basic Law Institute Chairman Alan Hoo to
preserve the 800-member Chief Executive Election Commission,
but lower the nomination threshold from 100 to 50; the top
two vote-getters then would compete in a "universal suffrage"
election. What was more "shocking," he said, was that this
was proposed as a permanent rather than interim measure. As
a result, the pan-democrats needed to "fight on" and engage
in more policy research and public outreach to convince the
people that they constituted a genuine alternative or
"government in waiting." This, he said, would be difficult
while the economy remained strong.


4. (C) In response to Commissioner Houston's observation that
Hong Kong people increasingly identified themselves as
"Chinese" rather than Hong Kong nationals, Leong replied that
this was not unexpected. Nevertheless, he pointed out that
Hong Kong young people had been highly interested in his CE
election campaign, with his personal blog consistently
drawing the highest number of hits during February and March.

HONG KONG 00001691 002 OF 003


Furthermore, Leong believed Hong Kong's professional and
middle classes had become increasingly frustrated with the
government's failure to engage in "civic activism." For
example, he cited a poll by Baptist University Professor
Michael DeGolyer which found that all sectors of society
believed the policy-making process in Hong Kong was "unfair;"
more striking, civil servants registered the highest such
rating. Similarly, Leong said that his candidacy's dominance
in seven Election Committee subsectors, including higher
education, lawyers, and engineers, in the December 2006 EC
vote, which was designed to encourage voters to place the
parochial interests of their subsectors ahead of those of
Hong Kong, generated even more anxiety in Beijing.


5. (C) Since the election, Leong said he had not observed any
retaliation by the central government against him. On the
contrary, he believed Beijing was "handling me with a lot of
care." One consequence of his candidacy, however, was that
the various "report writers" or "middlemen" from Beijing who
used to visit him had stopped doing so since he announced his
candidacy; he believed this was because they did not want to
be seen as interfering in any way with his candidacy.


6. (C) Asked by Commissioner D'Amato whether Hong Kong's
influence on Beijing was increasing, and if so whether that
was a concern in Beijing, Leong noted that the two televised
CE debates in March had been viewed by some 2.5 million Hong
Kong viewers as well as "all of Guangdong Province" in
southern China. He believed that mainland officials could
have blocked the broadcasts if they had wanted, as they did
for a live CNN interview of him in March. Leong hoped the
Guangdong viewers had been "inspired" by the debates.

Dinner with Legco Democrats
--------------


7. (C) During an April 29 dinner meeting, the delegation
reviewed recent political developments with Legislative
Council (Legco) members Martin Lee (Democratic Party),Ronny
Tong (Civic Party),Kwok Ka-Ki (independent democrat),and
Sin Chung-kai (Democratic Party). According to Kwok, the
general political situation in Hong Kong was "getting worse,"
and Lee noted that there still was no timetable for
implementation of universal suffrage. Tong observed that the
HKSARG was gaining a tighter hold on the media and opinion
polls, while the "conservatives" were pushing to increase the
threshold for nomination of a candidate to run for CE. Kwok
agreed, saying that the Government "keeps raising the bar and
creating hurdles" for the democrats. Lee believed the
impetus for this obstructionism came from Beijing, which had
been leery of the pan-democrats since the Article 23
(national security legislation) fiasco of 2003. Lee believed
the Central Government Liaison Office (CGLO) was acting
"behind the scenes" to control the political reform process.
He said Beijing had believed it could win over Hong Kong in
the first ten years following reversion, but the huge
demonstration in 2003 had caused the central government to
alter its plans and only allow CE candidates that it found
acceptable. According to Lee, another problem for the
pan-democrats was that CE Tsang was "much cleverer" than his
predecessor, Tung Chee-hwa.

Dinner with Human Rights Activists
--------------


8. (C) During an April 30 dinner meeting, the delegation
discussed various Hong Kong and mainland human rights and
labor issues with Legco member Lee Cheuk-yan of the Hong Kong
Confederation of Trade Unions, Han Dong-fang and Robin Munro
of the China Labour Bulletin (CLB),Cyd Ho of Hong Kong Human
Rights Monitor, and Amy Gadsden of the International
Republican Institute. Han and Munro described CLB's programs
to provide legal assistance and promote the rule of law in
mainland China. Han said that by locating and hiring lawyers
to assist workers and farmers, they were "trying to make
people believe more in law," which he said was difficult when
the government was the "biggest law-breaker." In the long
term, however, Han hoped that respect for the law would grow.
While Han claimed that none of the lawyers employed by CLB
had "gotten into trouble" through this work, Gadsden noted
that more generally the operating environment for NGOs in the
mainland was becoming more difficult. She believed the
"tremendous progress" in raising consciousness of human
rights now "scares Beijing." Lee agreed that "low-level
harassment" of NGOs was increasing. Munro said the "wei
quan" (rights protection) movement had made tremendous
progress but still "could be squashed." He believed that the

HONG KONG 00001691 003 OF 003


majority of mainlanders had signed on to the post-Tiananmen
Square "Deng Xiao-ping New Deal," under which the government
enacted economic reforms to improve the livelihoods of the
masses in tacit exchange for their acquiescence to continued
political control; if the economy slowed, however, Munro said
there would be "big trouble."


9. (C) Lee described Hong Kong as "the only place where China
could experiment with democracy." As such, central
government attitudes and policies toward the HKSAR provided a
useful indicator of Beijing's domestic policies; if they did
not allow progress toward democratization in Hong Kong, then
they certainly would not do so in the mainland. Lee -- who
is a member of the government-appointed Commission for
Strategic Development (CSD) -- said that although the
pan-democrats were "pushing" their electoral reform proposal
for inclusion in the forthcoming "green paper," the
Government probably would not include it among the three
major plans that the publication would highlight. Instead,
the CSD would "bundle" all of the dozens of plans reviewed by
the CSD into three fairly general plans, call for public
consultations and comments, and finally "pull the real plan
out" for presentation as the "ultimate" solution. Lee
believed the CSD had been "hand-picked to avoid consensus."
Ho agreed, saying the Government would "replay the 2005
scenario" by first proposing a plan that would fall short of
the democrats' needs, then portraying them as
"obstructionist" when they refused to support it. She said
the government needed to offer a definite timetable for
implementation of full universal suffrage; otherwise, the
pan-democrats would not agree to a "first step" because they
would fear that the "second and third steps" never would
follow.


10. (SBU) The USCC delegation cleared this cable.
Cunningham