Chapter 248 248 Hong Kong Advisory Committee

As usual in Hong Kong after the turmoil calmed down, many people would not even have remembered that the city's sovereignty had belonged to China if it had not been for the five-star red flag and bauhinia flags planted on flagpoles throughout the city. Britain naturally did not admit this, but what could it be if they did not admit it, as today, the soldiers of the British Quikha Regiment, British government officials, and British businessmen who had been captured in the Battle of Hong Kong all boarded the steamers in Victoria Harbour in silence, and they would leave the place where they had been drunk and dying.

This scene aroused the interest of many Hong Kong citizens, who rushed to witness the colonizers' departure at the last time.

Not everyone was happy to see this, and two days ago a group of unscrupulous pan-democrats launched a modest protest on Hong Kong Island, strongly demanding Hong Kong's self-determination and opposition to Communist Chinese rule. However, in the previous riots, many Hong Kong people have lost any idea of the British government in Hong Kong that shoots at the people, and most people have no concept of so-called independent self-government, Hong Kong people have never held a really powerful government position, and many commentators are even worried that Hong Kong people with no experience in governing may bring many negative consequences.

The Preparatory Advisory Committee of the HKSAR Government has been established with a view to establishing an effective political system for Hong Kong. At this time, the pan-democrats began to call for self-determination and independence, but instead they almost completely lost ground in the Advisory Committee. The people are also not very concerned about these clowns, because everyone knows that there is no possibility of Hong Kong's self-determination and independence at this time.

Therefore, instead of caring about the impossible, the media and the public in Hong Kong are paying close attention to the ACC's every move, especially in Hong Kong, where the soil for gossip is already fertile, and the members of the ACC will even appear on the pages of newspapers when they go to the bathroom for too long.

As there is no stumbling block from the United Kingdom during the transitional period, the Advisory Committee basically mentions that whatever system is constructive for Hong Kong. Before '91, Hong Kong's Legislative Council was not directly elected, and it was only indirectly elected in '85, and before that, it was even official or unofficial members appointed by the Governor of Hong Kong. If history had not changed in early '87, the British Government would have published the Green Paper on the Review of the Development of the Parliamentary System in 1987 in the autumn of that year, and consulted the public on the introduction of direct elections.

However, in fact, the British government in Hong Kong has played tricks and distorted the results of the consultation, showing that 70% of Hong Kong people do not want direct elections. The reason for the distorted results is that in the Sino-British negotiations, if the consultation shows that Hong Kong people do not want direct elections, then China will include universal suffrage in the Basic Law. Of course, Britain changed its way to find trouble, and it changed the result. As a result, direct elections were not held in 1988 and were postponed to 1991.

In short, these are things that cannot happen on this level, and the Advisory Committee has two major responsibilities, one is to establish the Basic Law with the central government, and the other is to consult with the central government and the people to create a political system in Hong Kong.

In the Legislative Yuan election, there is actually no gap with Hong Kong in later generations, and it is mainly divided into two parts: direct election by districts and functional constituencies, with a total of 30 seats elected by the five constituencies of Hong Kong Island, Kowloon East, Kowloon West, New Territories East and New Territories West, and 30 seats elected by the functional constituencies in 28 functional constituencies such as industry and commerce, labour, education, law, and medical care, forming a total of 60 members of the Legislative Council.

Although it is not a full universal suffrage, half of the direct election places are still very powerful. Even some pan-democrats, whose conscience has not yet completely died, have praised this as a major step forward for democracy in Hong Kong. Some pro-democracy figures also expressed their expectations for the election of the first Legislative Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

The part that has more controversy is the selection of the chief executive. After studying the politics of Hong Kong in later generations, some bigwigs believe that even if the executive and legislative parts are both pro-establishment, they lack the ability to act in a unified manner and make mistakes repeatedly. Therefore, he instructed the central delegates to propose a responsible cabinet system, in which the chief executive would be elected by the Legislative Council, so that the majority party in parliament could elect its own leader as the chief executive, and after the chief executive was elected, a member of the parliament would be by-elected to the Legislative Council. However, in practice, it is very likely that there will be no absolute majority, and a coalition of political parties will need to negotiate to elect a chief executive, and all kinds of troubles will follow.

The advantage of the responsible cabinet system is that the legislature and the executive will maintain a certain unified pace, which is beneficial to the promotion and implementation of policies, but the disadvantage is that if something goes wrong, the whole party will have to bear the blame, and if a small party is in power, it is easy to cause a crisis of confidence.

In addition, the election of the chief executive is indirectly through a so-called "broadly representative" election committee, which is the original model, which is relatively conservative, but in fact the central government controls the election of the chief executive through the election committee appointed by itself, and strives to achieve a means of controlling the political situation in Hong Kong. This is not impossible, but it will definitely be replaced slowly with the development of the times. Moreover, it is very easy to sort out the trust and relationship between the central government and the local Hong Kong people.

Some people in the Advisory Council have also proposed direct universal suffrage for the chief executive, but the voices of the central government are still not very supportive of such a radical model, so universal suffrage for the chief executive should be the most unlikely system.

In the end, it was the political wisdom of Ping Taizong that gave a satisfactory answer to this controversial question: a dual electoral system.

The election of the Chief Executive and the Legislative Yuan follow a similar model, with direct elections for the five major elections and elections for functional constituencies, and a method that is highly similar to universal suffrage is adopted to elect the chief executive. Naturally, there is nothing to say about direct election, and the cat is tired of the functional sector. The central government basically has little control over the votes in direct elections, but basically all the functional constituencies depend on the central government, including the votes of trade unions, cultural circles, sports circles, industry and commerce, etc., and there are many small actions that can be carried out by the 28 functional constituencies. Basically, these votes can be controlled quite a bit, although it cannot be fully controlled like the Election Commission, but at least there is a fallback, and procedural justice is not affected on the surface.

The efforts of the Advisory Committee have been widely recognized by the society, and it is rare to be two-sided. The left rejoices in justifying its Chinese identity, and pan-democrats are gearing up to make a difference in a new democracy. Hong Kong people feel that the value of their votes has suddenly risen sharply, and by the way, they feel that their status has improved, and they have no nostalgia for the gloomy departure of the British. There is only a group of blinding leading party and banana people who are suffering from gains and losses, still holding on to all kinds of haves and don'ts, but no one pays attention to these guys, and they are not willing to let them destroy the harmonious atmosphere.

After the Advisory Committee formally established Hong Kong's political system in April, politicians with political ambitions and would-be politicians began a large-scale series of propaganda activities, and in almost a few days, dozens of political parties emerged in Hong Kong, one after another, pointing to the first election in July. Although the dual electoral system of the chief executive is separated from the legislature, it is unlikely that the chief executive will be able to stabilize the position of the chief executive without the help of political parties.

With the support of the central government and the inclination of resources, the Hong Kong Socialist Democratic Party was formally established, and Fok Yingdong, known as a red-top businessman, went out of the mountains and abandoned business to enter politics to stand for the Social Democratic Party and serve as the party chairman. Hong Kong tycoons Lee Ka-shing and Lee Chiu-kei, Macau gambling king Ho Hongshen and others have donated large sums of money to contribute to the SPD's election campaign. The SPD itself has not established its own political demands, and in fact, most of the newly formed political parties at this time have not gone that far, and they are still ignorant, and the election is imminent, so they can only beat gongs and drums in the hope of getting votes.

As a political party with the same name and attributes, the Nanyang Social Democratic Party also specially sent personnel to Hong Kong to guide the construction of the party, and there are naturally party leaders who have been sent to help in China, so the Hong Kong Social Democratic Party has basically won at the starting line from the beginning, with a well-thought-out political party organizational structure, abundant financial resources, and the support of external forces. These are all advantages that no other party in Hong Kong can match.

The campaign platform was drafted by Qi Yiming himself, and he was one of the few people in the Celestial Empire who was proficient in the context of democratic politics in this era. He did not mention much specific economic and social development, but he had only a few suggestions for the SPD. The first is to establish a service-oriented government with efficient administrative efficiency; The second is to expand the functions and powers of the Independent Commission Against Corruption and strengthen the building of a clean government; the third is to strengthen the construction of the social welfare system to protect the interests of vulnerable groups; Fourth, we will invigorate Hong Kong's free economy, strengthen cooperation with the mainland, and provide more development opportunities for local businesses and businesses.

On the whole, this program is well-behaved, and it can be seen that it is indeed the way of the center-left party. It has not offended any obvious interest groups, among which protecting the interests of vulnerable groups and strengthening the construction of the social welfare system have shown in the polls that Hong Kong citizens are most concerned about, which has also made the SPD lead the polls all the way since May and become the biggest favorite in the Legislative Council election in July.

The rest, such as the Civic Party, the Democratic Party, this alliance, that connection, and so on, have not completed the integration of resources at this time, and the leaders and competition strategies for the election have not been released. As a result, the newly born local political commentators in Hong Kong believe that in the July Legislative Council election, if nothing else, the SPD will occupy the majority of the 60 seats in the Legislative Council.

After the Legislative Council is elected, the "Basic Law of Hong Kong" will first be reviewed, and after it is passed by the local Legislative Council, it will be sent to the National People's Congress for deliberation, and after it is formally adopted, it will become a constitutional document of Hong Kong.

One is that as a part of China, even under the "one country, two systems" principle, Hong Kong is obliged to pay local national taxes to the central government, the amount of which can be reduced as appropriate, but this principled tax must be available. The second is a matter of principle, that is, the establishment of a PLA recruitment office in Hong Kong and the implementation of a voluntary recruitment plan.

In another timeline, Hong Kong does not pay taxes to the central government, does not carry out conscription, and completely only has rights and no obligations, which raises some Hong Kong Can who feels that he is born noble and has a rotten problem. Qi Yiming strongly insisted that these two policies must be written into the Basic Law, giving Hong Kong a legitimate position from the root.