The Politics of Article 23 Consultation in Macau
The public consultation on the draft legislation that will enact Article 23 of the Basic Law in Macau is highly political and has significant implications for Hong Kong in the future, although the Hong Kong government has said that it will not legislate on Article 23 in the short run because of the overwhelming concern about the current regional and global financial tsunami.
The Macau consultation process has been marked by several prominent features. First and foremost, the consultation period lasted for forty days--a relatively short period of time that could guarantee maximal public support and minimal public opposition. That the Article 23 draft legislation was announced on a day during which legal seminars and group activities were orchestrated in a way that supported the proposed legislation was already a highly political act aimed at winning the hearts and minds of most Macau people. During the whole consultative process, the Chinese mass media and the Chinese newspapers have overwhelmingly supported the draft legislation on Article 23, accompanied by commentaries written by pro-Beijing and patriotic academics and legal scholars as well as the policy clarifications made by the judicial officials. Arguably, the Macau way of consulting public opinion avoided the pitfalls of the problematic promotion of the Article 23 legislation in Hong Kong during the Tung Chee Hwa regime from 2002 to mid-2003. While the abortive Hong Kong process in mid-2003 was marked by severe public opposition and fear of the Communist dictatorship, the Macau situation has been vastly different and showed a high degree of patriotic fervour totally a far cry from the Hong Kong scenario. The implication for Hong Kong is that any similar Article 23 legislation in the capitalist enclave will have to learn from the very successful way in which the Macau Article 23 consultation was conducted. Second, while the officials explaining Macau’s draft legislation were quite extensive and united and able to clarify terms such as “preparatory behaviour” and “the seven criminal offences,” the Hong Kong debacle in mid-2003 was characterized by the few lonely officials, such as the former Secretary for Security Regina Ip, to promote the abortive draft document in a provocative manner. The Macau officials have promoted the draft legislation in a low-keyed and moderate manner, making the public feel that the government did make an effort to clarify ambiguous areas of concerns. Arguably, the Macau experience has much to be learnt by the Hong Kong people. While the Hong Kong elites were polarized into pro-government and anti-government sectors in the Article 23 debate in 2002-2003, the Macau discussion and political discourse tended to be more rational, calm, detailed as well as less emotional than the Hong Kong case. This also reflected the highly politicized civil society in Hong Kong where the legal profession and the intellectuals were highly cynical of and sceptical toward the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which to them represented political authoritarianism and which would attempt to control the freedom of speech and expression in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Although few intellectuals and some liberal-minded elites in Macau do share this Hong Kong concern, the overwhelming sentiment in Macau has tended to support the enactment of a national security law. The crux of the problem in Macau is the clarification of ambiguous wordings that have raised the alarm and concerns as well as fears of some Macau intellectuals. An interesting phenomenon in both Macau and Hong Kong is that some intellectuals and liberals have expressed deep concerns about any measure that might be adopted by the government to restrict societal freedom and social space through the use of the ambiguous provisions in the draft Article 23 legislation. In a sense, this reflected the maturity of some intellectual elites in both Macau and Hong Kong. On the other hand, one can argue that they tend to view civil liberties as of paramount importance and far more significant than the question of sovereignty, which is the central issue raised by the pro-Article 23 supporters.
Third, the mass media in Macau have remained relatively weak in opposing any
provision of the draft Article 23 legislation, while the strong opposition in Hong Kong succeeded in galvanising the public to oppose the draft legislation inside and outside the Legislative Council in June and July 2003. The mass media in Macau tend to be largely pro-government and the discourse is conducive to the enactment of Article 23 of the Basic Law. But Hong Kong was and will be different; its strong and assertive mass media as well as the vociferous legal profession will surely challenge any state attempt at legislating on Article 23 of the Basic Law. After all, the Macau legal profession appears to be far more docile and pro-regime than its Hong Kong counterpart. The pro-democracy movement in Macau is also relatively much weaker than that in Hong Kong; Ng Kuok Cheong and Au Kam San cannot and will not be able to challenge the regime determination to enact Article 23 of the Basic Law. The question is whether the concerns raised by the democrats and religious activists can prompt the government to clarify areas of ambiguity in the proposed Article 23 legislation.
Fourth, the public in Hong Kong was galvanized by the controversy over Article 23 to oppose the Tung regime because of various contentious policies, such as civil service reform and housing policies; however, the Macau public has not been mobilized to target at any maladministration of the Edmund Ho regime. Nor does the Macau public feel it necessary to oppose Edmund Ho in a way parallel to the Hong Kong people’s attitude toward Mr. Tung Chee Hwa. That the popularity of Edmund Ho, amidst the decline of casino development, has been able to offset any public grievances against the government is a sign of strong post-colonial state in Macau. The post-colonial state in Hong Kong under Tung, however, was weak, disunited and fragmented. This situation does not really exist in Macau. The implication of the Macau experience for Hong Kong is that any attempt of the Hong Kong government to legislate on Article 23 should and will have to build up a strong and united post-colonial state.
Fifth, the controversy over Article 23 in Hong Kong in 2002-2003 aroused the international concerns, whereas the Macau consultation process has secured the support of some foreign countries, like the United Kingdom in public. This relative absence of international opposition to the draft legislation on Article 23 in Macau is a far cry from the predicament in Hong Kong in 2002-2003, when the international community and foreign countries were regarded as the invisible hand behind the mobilization of half a million protestors on the streets of Hong Kong on July 1, 2003. The Macau case’s implication for Hong Kong is that any future Hong Kong government which will try to enact Article 23 of the Basic Law will have to secure the international support.
Sixth, cross-border political participation by some Hong Kong elites and politicians in opposing Article 23 of the Basic Law in Macau has raised a concern about whether politics in Macau has been Hongkongized to some extent. Members of the Social Democratic Front and Civic Party in Hong Kong arrived at Macau to protest against and express their concern about the draft legislation on Article 23. This phenomenon was new, triggering a
mysterious cancellation of a public forum on this controversial national security legislation at the University of Macau. Whatever the grounds of cancelling the public forum, the degree of political sensitivity and polarization could be seen in Macau once the Hong Kong pro-democracy activists participated in Macau’s public forum.
Seventh, while the Macau case has proved that many pro-Beijing groups have been fully mobilized to support the draft legislation (such as kaifong federation, women groups, youth organization and other pro-Beijing organizations), the Hong Kong situation in 2002-2003 was characterized by some mobilization of leftwing groups, which however expressed their views mostly inside the legislature rather than outside it. On the contrary, the pro-democracy forces in Hong Kong skillfully mobilized the public fear to oppose Article 23 through various channels, including the mass media, radio programs, newspaper advertisements, and protests outside the Legislative Council. Macau is different; without a strong and assertive civil society, the public opposition to Article 23 in Macau is very weak.
Eighth, the Macau way of consultation showed that Chinese style of democracy is a top-down one in which the state confers upon the individuals and groups the right to have free speech, to enjoy freedom of expression, and to possess the freedom of assembly. The state itself can have the right to restrict these rights--a very traditional Chinese view of power relations that was mentioned by Professor Andrew Nathan in his classic work, Chinese Democracy. From the Western perspective and from the Hong Kong legal profession’s angle, this Chinese style of democracy appears to be “undemocratic” and non-Western, but the harsh reality is that the Macau consultative politics has proved that Chinese democracy is very different from the West. All those contentious issues and terms raised by groups and individuals in Macau during the past several weeks of consultation have proved that Chinese democracy is top-down initiatives taken by the state from above, whereas the opposition is expected to be loyal rather than disloyal. Being loyal means supporting the enactment of Article 23 in principle, but the legislation’s content can be discussed and debated further. Being disloyal means that the groups and individuals oppose Article 23 and its enactment. This Chinese way of seeing democracy and conferring political space on dissidents is very unique.
Last but not least, when the Hong Kong government raises the issue of legislating on Article 23 two or three years later, as the economy will take a turn for the better, the local democrats will likely face a losing battle as the political environment of patriotism is increasing gradually in Hong Kong. The democrats will encounter the danger of an internal split and also the challenge of putting forward their ideal version of the draft Article 23 legislation. If the Hong Kong democrats will still oppose the draft legislation for the sake of opposing Article 23, their action will be marginalized by the mass media and criticized by the increasingly pro-Beijing media. Hence, the challenge of the Hong Kong democrats is to devise a strategy that will not be seen as “backward,” or refraining from any dialogue with the governmental authorities.
In short, although the politics of consulting public opinion on the draft Article 23 legislation is very different from that in Hong Kong from 2002 to 2003, the Hong Kong people should arguably learn from the relatively calm, less fragmented, and more rational discourse in Macau over the proposed legislation. Again the Macau way of conducting politics appears to be in line with the mainland governing principles of maintaining harmony and social consensus. The Hong Kong challenge of adopting a similar Article 23 legislation will be the same; the crux of the problem is whether the strong civil society and assertive “disloyal” opposition there will change their tactics that will make themselves more popular rather than projecting an image of being blind oppositionists.
Sonny Lo is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Waterloo. His new book is The Politics of Cross-Border Crime in Greater China: Case Studies of Mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau (New York: M. E. Sharpe, January 2009)