In most of the legislatures of the world, party rivalry is the normal state of affairs, even if the bases, modes and intensity of party rivalry vary from place to place. Invariably, legislators around the world have party affiliations. Legislatures can be characterized by single-party dominance, two-party competition, multiparty contests or clashes among party coalitions.
In short, legislative politics is party politics. Political parties vary in their ideology, religious affiliation, class orientation, regional identification, ethnic allegiance, etc. Party rivalry is hardly gentlemanly encounters. Its mode and intensity range from heated competition and acrimonious conflict to a life-and-death struggle.
Since the introduction of elections into Hong Kong’s legislature in the 1980s and before the advent of the new legislature elected via a revamped electoral system in 2021, party politics was increasingly dominant in the Legislative Council, concomitant with the expansion of its popularly elected membership. Many of the legislators elected by functional constituencies also found that to serve better the sectional interests that they represented, they had to join or form political parties or party-like groupings.
After Hong Kong’s return to China, political struggles within the Legislative Council had greatly intensified and become increasingly ugly and implacable. The legislators had split into two antagonistic camps. Both the “pro-establishment” camp and the opposition camp were made up of like-minded political parties, political groupings, and “independents”. Politics in the legislature were dominated by unceasing and unrelenting struggles between the two camps, with the minority opposition camp resorting endlessly and unscrupulously to filibustering and violent tactics to hamper and occasionally paralyze the functioning of the legislature. Party politics in the legislature was detrimental to the executive-legislative relationship, good governance, and the successful implementation of “one country, two systems”.
Without doubt, the rules of the game in the new legislature will differ substantially from those of the old one. For one thing, no legislator or political party can distinguish itself from others by employing incendiary rhetoric, name-calling, or radical tactics, which were the common shenanigans of the opposition in the past
The new legislature elected under the revamped electoral system of Hong Kong sees the well-nigh complete disappearance of the opposition camp. All legislators are “patriots” allegiant to the motherland, “one country, two systems” and the Basic Law of Hong Kong. Unlike the legislatures in the West, there is no fundamental political difference among the newly elected legislators. Particularly noteworthy is that while there are still political parties in the legislature, they no longer dominate the body nor distinguish themselves by their political beliefs and fealty. Alongside the political parties are a large number of independents with outstanding professional credentials. That, however, does not mean that the new legislature has become a “monochromatic” body; its “multi-colors” are largely reflected in the legislators’ divergent positions on economic, social, cultural, livelihood and governance issues. In varying degrees, these differences among legislators can also be detected inside the political parties and political groupings.
Theoretically, given the staggering social and economic inequities in Hong Kong, disagreements on socioeconomic policies among legislators coming from different social strata and with diverse backgrounds can be vast and not amenable to compromise. The reality, however, is that there is an emergent public agreement on the relative priorities to be given to various socioeconomic issues and the ways and means to tackle them. Housing, land, healthcare, the COVID-19 pandemic, poverty, diversification of the industrial structure, economic development, and governance are without doubt the major concerns of the man on the street. Even though not enough efforts have been made to resolve these issues in the past, experiences garnered from halting and intermittent attempts to cope with them over time do have the effect of narrowing the range of feasible options available. Consequently, some sort of convergence of views on the pressing issues and the policy instruments to deal with them is already there among governing elites to “constrain” the choices available to the legislators and hence facilitate “consensus-building” among the legislators.
Consequently, the new legislature of Hong Kong will present a political phenomenon that is rare and unique. The “old”, belligerent, and “anti-system” opposition is nowhere to be found. Political parties have to share power and influence with a large number of independents. Political and policy differences among political parties and individual legislators are not unmanageable; neither are the differences between the legislature and the executive branch of the government. The interesting things to observe and study therefore are the way and style that legislative politics will proceed.
Immediately after the new Legislative Council came into being, Xia Baolong, director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council, met with some of the legislators. On behalf of the central authorities, Xia admonished them to be steadfast patriots, custodians of the executive-led political system, authentic representatives of public opinion, high-caliber officeholders, and founders of a new-style legislature. Obviously, in addition to spelling out Beijing’s expectations of the new legislators, Beijing also forewarns that it will monitor the performance of the legislators closely. Certainly, Beijing does not expect and will not accept a chaotic and divided legislature as seen in the past.
We may also add that Beijing’s expectations of the new legislature are shared by many Hong Kong residents who detest and are disappointed with the previous legislatures, in which the opposition legislators ran amok. I do not doubt that all the new legislators will pay heed to the admonitions of Beijing and the expectations of the Hong Kong residents.
So how will legislative politics play out in a context of no “anti-system” opposition, limited political and policy differences among political parties and independents, an incipient consensus of sorts on the socioeconomic issues and the way to handle them, and no resort to radical and violent tactics? Without doubt, the rules of the game in the new legislature will differ substantially from those of the old one.
For one thing, no legislator or political party can distinguish itself from others by employing incendiary rhetoric, name-calling, or radical tactics, which were the common shenanigans of the opposition in the past. Filibustering, rule-breaking and violence, which were used by the opposition to hamper the functioning of the legislature, are now anathema. Mobilizing the masses against other legislators and political parties purporting to change their stance is not acceptable. Political grandstanding for no justifiable purpose other than self-advertisement will be frowned upon.
Instead, the new legislators are expected to maintain the unity and solidarity of the patriotic camp, enhance its reputation and bolster the legitimacy of “Hong Kong administered by patriots”. They are charged with the collective duty to showcase the superiority of “patriots administering Hong Kong” as a model of governance. In the process of building their political careers, legislators are exhorted to play the “long game”, i.e., to be prepared to incur short-term “costs” for the sake of achieving a long-term political career. They are enjoined to place collective and long-term interests above parochial and short-term interests. They should be capable of adroitly balancing and reconciling national interests and local interests. They are encouraged to strive for consensus and be willing to compromise. Each of them is prodded to cut a congenial and amiable persona. Rationality, pragmatism and people orientation are the most cherished qualities demanded from legislators.
To outcompete their colleagues, legislators have to demonstrate their diligence, conscientiousness, expertise, mastery of the issues, sound suggestions, constructive criticisms, and connectedness with public aspirations. Vicious party competition is out of bounds.
In the new Legislative Council, apart from the local legislation according to Article 23 of the Basic Law, social, economic and livelihood issues will be the foci. Notwithstanding the differences among political parties and independents on matters about the redistribution of interests and power among various social classes, it is expected that they will be able to compromise with each other so that these longstanding and increasingly thorny issues can be tackled. As I see it, today, after experiencing the decade-long turmoil in Hong Kong, many vested interests, mainly large corporations and monopolies, are more agreeable to making concessions to attain social peace and political stability, as well as to court favor with Beijing. As such, consensus-building and compromise should become the overriding operating principles of the new legislature. Even in the case of local legislation according to Article 23, disagreements within the legislature are foreordained to be minimal, as all the legislators are patriots and have vowed to safeguard national security.
The antagonistic relationship between the legislature and the executive branch of the government, which used to be the normal state of affairs since 1997, will come to an end. The legislative intention of the Basic Law on this matter is that the relationship between the executive and the legislature should be one of “mutual checking and balancing” and “cooperation”, with emphasis on the latter. For this self-contradictory principle to be operable, the legislators are urged to wish the government well, provide it with good and feasible policy proposals, criticize the government thoughtfully for the sake of improving its performance, and mobilize public support for the government as far as possible. In return, the government will involve the legislators in the early stages of the policymaking process to win the goodwill of the legislators and hence to expedite the passage of the necessary bills and budgetary proposals by the legislature.
The new legislature, with the absence of the “anti-system” opposition, completely dominated by the patriots, infused with the spirit of pragmatism and give-and-take, displaying dignified comportment, mindful of the imperative need to resolve the thorny social, economic and livelihood issues, and ready to work together with the executive branch to promote public well-being, is the legislature Hong Kong has been desperately craving since its return to the motherland and now ultimately obtained thanks to the making of the National Security Law for Hong Kong and the drastic revamping of the region’s electoral system by the central authorities.
The author is a professor emeritus of sociology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and vice-president of Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.