Chinese poodles

When things go wrong-as they certainly will, sometime after Hong Kong returns to Chinese sovereignty next year-there will be an attempt to assign blame. The suspects most likely to be held responsible for the coming debacle-the dismantling of representative government, the demise of the legal system and the spread of corruption-are the British and the Chinese governments. The first for sins of omission; the latter for sins of commission.

There is no shortage of evidence against these culprits. But there is another suspect unlikely to be questioned at all. That suspect is the people of Hong Kong, more specifically the motley crew of civil servants and businessmen known as "the community's leaders."

With the exception of a small group of political activists, most of those claiming to speak on behalf of the people of Hong Kong are, in fact, trying to second-guess what their masters wish to hear. They have been doing so for a long time.



The only occasions on which the community's leaders have broken with their rulers was when those rulers attempted social reform. It happened when Governor John Pope Hennessy tried to introduce greater rights for Chinese people in the 1870s, prompting outrage from British businessmen. After the restoration of British rule follo-wing the second world war occupation of Hong Kong by Japan, there were demands for the introduction of democracy. The returning governor, Mark Young, became convinced that reform was needed, but failed to take account of the resistance which was mounted by both British and Chinese business leaders. They sought to thwart the advance of democracy by appealing directly to Whitehall.

Today, many community leaders are open autocrats. Ronald Li, former chairman of the stock exchange, summed up the feelings of many of his fellow businessmen by saying: "Don't talk to me about democracy; that's a word that should be obliterated from the dictionary."

These misgivings about democracy reflect a genuine fear of what it might entail. They have been well articulated by James Tien, a legislator and tycoon, who says that too much democracy leads to a "free lunch syndrome" in which the have-nots use elected institutions to claw back wealth from the haves.

Hong Kong's autocrats also explain that democracy is not appropriate for a Chinese society with its Confucian values stressing obedience and order. It is a view enthusiastically endorsed by the Chinese Communist party. (In neighbouring Taiwan, a thoroughly Chinese society, autocracy has given way to democracy without damaging either order or economic growth.)

Business leaders recently wrote to John Major complaining about Governor Chris Patten, who accused them of hypocrisy for failing to defend the colony's democratic system while securing their own safety by acquiring foreign passports. Almost all the old guard Hong Kong leaders, in tactical alliance with the leftists, are suspicious of elections. The old guard know they would not be elected in a free ballot. The last election for the legislature returned just one old guard leader for the seats allocated to directly elected representatives drawn from geographical (as opposed to occupational) constituencies.

Many of these community leaders have been appointed with some ceremony to a beehive of Chinese advisory bodies. In some cases, their sycophancy has led them to go further than even the most hardline Communist officials. Recently SY Chung, the former senior member of the governor's executive council, now firmly in the China camp, outlined plans to establish a full scale shadow government for the last year of colonial rule-a scheme which would create near paralysis in the administration. The chief justice, TL Yang, has denounced the new Bill of Rights, and a committee of advisors has come up with a scheme for stripping all Hong Kong emigrants of their civil rights should they wish to return home. All this is being treated with wry amusement by the new Chinese masters as they test and probe to see who will show true loyalty to the new regime.

Yet nothing has changed fundamentally. The same people who are now brushing up their Mandarin or Putonghua (the northern Chinese dialect) were equally sycophantic in their attitude towards the gweilo (or "ghost people," as westerners are commonly known). They struggled to master the English language, sent their children to public schools and moved heaven and earth to get invitations to Government House parties. The most trustworthy were awarded with appointments to advisory committees. Honours were dispensed to ensure that the chosen few were kept on side. Even now the most vociferous pro-Beijing patriots find it hard to give up their OBEs.

In an interview in the Daily Telegraph last February, Chris Patten suggested that the leaders of big business were sucking up to the new masters to protect their business interests. This is basically true, but the motivation of the new band of Chinese patriots is more complex.

It is hard to underestimate the extent to which the British are despised. And much of the most vociferous anti-British sentiment comes from those who have the closest association with the colonial government. This unpleasant truth is rarely discussed openly. But it was acknowledged, just 15 years after the creation of the colony, in a typically candid dispatch from Governor George Bowen to his masters in London in 1885. "I recognise the fact," he wrote, "that it would be practically impossible to create an elective municipality in Hong Kong, for probably not a single Englishman would be elected to it."

Most of those expressing dislike for the colonial system chose to live under it. They, or their parents, saw British rule as preferable to life under the Chinese Communist party. It was a wise choice, even if on occasion the colonial rulers behaved in as arbitrary and haughty a manner as any Chinese magistrate.

As always in a colonial system, success depended on the co-option of a small elite drawn from the native population. There was no shortage of volunteers. Direct collaboration with the regime came in the form of recruitment to the civil service. Some of the best and brightest were attracted to jobs which offered security of employment and relatively high status. They quickly learned that advancement was not gained by the exercise of a creative mind but by the ability to guess what their masters wanted to hear. Not unlike similar bodies in other countries, the Hong Kong civil service is notably insular; no more than a handful of senior officers come from outside. They have a tremendous loyalty to the system and will, when the time comes-as it now has-quickly transfer that loyalty to whoever promises to keep it intact.

But Hong Kong civil servants will not exert themselves to preserve the integrity of a system which is basically uncorrupt (although the police force used to be notably corrupt), and accustomed to administering the life of citizens through well established rules, rather than arbitrary decisions.

Indeed, for the first time in their history, they are now resolutely obstructing the wishes of their masters, specifically Chris Patten, because they know their new masters will reward those who have switched allegiance ahead of the changeover. Donald Tsang, the immensely ambitious financial secretary, who used to be the favourite of the previous governor, David Wilson, last year gave an interview saying that the return to Chinese sovereignty was "a glorious event for ethnic Chinese... for the first time we will be dealing with a sovereign power which speaks our language and understands our culture." It seems unlikely that he ever expressed these views to his former boss, nor were they much in evidence when he was setting up the escape-hatch scheme devised by the British government for key Hong Kong people who have been given the right to full British passports.

Do the British deserve better? It took them 40 years of colonial rule in Hong Kong before they could bring themselves to trust a Chinese, Ng Choy, an anglicised lawyer, with membership of the legislative council. His appointment was cautiously followed by others; soon a pattern was established of identifying bright trouble-makers who could be co-opted into the system. It was only last year, more than 150 years after the establishment of colonial rule, that the complex system of appointments to bodies such as the legislature finally came to an end.

Most people in Hong Kong want nothing to do with government of whatever stripe. They reflect the traditional Chinese aversion to government, and are even reluctant to cast votes at election time. (In last September's polls for the legislature only about one third of registered voters bothered to cast their votes.)

Opinion polls consistently show that Hong Kong people favour more democracy. The most outspoken democrats, such as Emily Lau and Martin Lee, top popularity polls. Yet few seem willing to do anything about it. The unwillingness of the bulk of the population to be drawn into political activity, except in extreme circumstances such as the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square massacre, places even more responsibility on the shoulders of community leaders to act on their behalf. China, however, will only speak to those who have signalled that they will say what Beijing wants to hear.

The only Chinese government advisors prepared to tell the leadership in Beijing some home truths are longtime supporters of Beijing who have never been part of the Hong Kong establishment. Indeed, for years many were hounded by the colonial authorities. Most of them are members of a party called the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong. The lawyer Dorothy Liu Yiu-Chu, who also sits in the National People's Congress, China's parliament, is now being frozen out of all preparations for the transfer of power because she dares publicly to criticise China's plans.

Like so many converts, China's new friends are holier than the Pope. But their adherence to the new order is cynical-if they have any ideological beliefs, they tend to be deeply anti-communist. These people decline to give impartial advice-even on matters close to their hearts, such as the preservation of the rule of law, which they know underpins the security of their business interests.

Few communities have been so abjectly let down by their leaders as the people of Hong Kong. They will go on supporting the democratic parties, while those with the power to preserve a free Hong Kong concede ground at every twist and turn. When things go wrong we should remember who to blame.