Abstract
For O’Donnell and Schmitter, the ‘popular upsurge’ may encounter ‘selective repression, manipulation and cooptation by those still in control of the state apparatus’.1 Moreover, ‘when the transition is controlled relatively firmly and protracted by incumbents, the popular upsurge is less likely to occur, and where it does, it tends to be more confined in space and time’.2 Because O’Donnell and Schmitter emphasise the internal dynamics of democratisation, they do not consider the likelihood that the transition from authoritarianism may be ‘controlled firmly and protracted’ by external factors rather than by ‘incumbents’ in the ruling regime. In the case of Hong Kong, China becomes, as this chapter will discuss, the most important external factor influencing the process of democratisation. Moreover, the limited popular upsurge in Hong Kong during the 1980s stimulated China’s political mobilisation of pro-Beijing Hongkongers and ‘cooptation’ of elites. Later, this chapter will show that China used a number of strategies to coopt Hongkongers during the Basic Law drafting process and the late transition period.
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Notes
Philip Selznick, TVA and the Grass Roots (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1949), p. 13.
The word ‘cooptee’, which is borrowed from Michael Seward, refers to an individual or group representative who ‘is formally incorporated into government decision-making as an adviser, informant or colleague’. See Michael Saward, ‘Cooption and Power: Who Gets What From Formal Incorporation’, Political Studies, vol. 38, no. 4 (December 1990), pp. 588–689. While Selznick uses the word ‘cooptation’, Saward uses ‘cooption’ to refer to the same process of absorping elites into governmental decision-making process.
For a case study of the Basic Law drafting process, see Lo Shiu-hing, ‘The Politics of Cooptation in Hong Kong: A Study of the Basic Law Drafting Process’, Asian Journal of Public Administration, vol. 14, no. 1 (June 1992), pp. 3–24.
24. Organisational politics refers to ‘actions not officially sanctioned (approved) by an organisation taken to influence others to meet one’s personal goals’. For the ‘techniques’ of gaining power advantage within an organisation, see Jerald Greenberg and Robert A. Baron, Behaviour in Organisations: Understanding and Managing the Human Side of Work (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1995), pp. 472–473.
For an analysis of the relationship between cooptation and legitimacy, see Michael Saward, Co-optive Politics and State Legitimacy (Aldershot: Dartmouth, 1991). For a review of China’s cooptation work in Hong Kong, see Benson Wong Wai-kwok, ‘China’s United Front Work in Hong Kong Since the 1980s’, unpublished MPhil thesis, Division of Social Science, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 1996.
Ian Scott, ‘Legitimacy and its Discontents: Hong Kong and the Reversion to Chinese Sovereignty’, Asian Journal of Political Science, vol. 1, no. 1 (June 1993), pp. 55–75. Also see Scott, Political Change and the Crisis of Legitimacy in Hong Kong, op. cit., Chapter 8.
See David Clark, ‘Sedition and Article 23’, in Peter Wesley-Smith, ed., Hong Kong’s Basic Law: Problems and Prospects (Hong Kong: Faculty of Law, University of Hong Kong, 1990), p. 33.
Ibid., p. 24. This practice is also stated in the Royal Instructions, a constitutional document in Hong Kong. See Miners , The Government and Politics of Hong Kong (1995), Appendix C, op. cit., p. 256.
Martin Lee, ‘How Much Autonomy?’, in William McGurn, ed., Basic Law, Basic Questions: The Debate Continues (Hong Kong: Review Publishing Company Limited, 1988), p. 45.
In 1991, China and Britain reached an agreement that imposed a limit of one ‘foreign’ judge on the five-member Court of Final Appeal in Hong Kong. The agreement angered many Hongkongers, who believed that the composition of the Court of Final Appeal should be flexible. In December 1991, most Legco members voted for a motion rejecting the Sino-British deal. For details, see Lo Shiu-hing, ‘The Politics of the Court of Final Appeal Debate in Hong Kong’, Issues & Studies, vol. 29, no. 2 (February 1993), pp. 105–131.
K. C. Wheare, Modern Constitutions (London: Oxford University Press, 1975), pp. 15–16.
Michael C. Davis, Constitutional Confrontation in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: MacMillan, 1989), p. 8.
Andrew Nathan, ‘Political Rights in Chinese Constitution’, in R. Randle Edwards, Louis Henkin, and Andrew Nathan, Human Rights in Contemporary China (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), pp. 77–124.
Carol Lee Hamrin, China and the Challenge of the Future: Changing Political Patterns (Boulder: Westview Press, 1990), p. 222.
David S. G. Goodman, ‘The People’s Republic of China in 1991: Provinces Confronting the State’, working paper no. 3, Asia Research Centre, Murdoch University, December 1991, p. 13.
Simon Long, ‘Political Reform’, in Gerald Segal, ed., Chinese Politics and Foreign Policy Reform (London: Kegan Paul, 1990), p. 39.
For details, see Harry Harding, China’s Second Revolution: Reform After Mao (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1987), pp. 78–79.
Benedict Stavis, China’s Political Reform: An Interim Report (New York: Praeger, 1988), pp. 129–130.
Victor C. Falkenheim, ‘Chinese Politics in Transition’, in Victor C. Falkenheim, ed., Chinese Politics from Mao to Deng (New York: Paragon House, 1989), p. 7. Also see Long, ‘Political Reform’, op. cit., pp. 43–45.
For the events leading to the Tiananmen incident, see Melanie Manion, ‘Introduction: Reluctant Duelists’, in Michel Oksenberg, Lawrence R. Sullivan, and Marc Lambert, eds., Beijing Spring, 1989: Confrontation and Conflict (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1990), xiv.
For civil service reform, see John P. Burns, ‘Chinese Civil Service Reform: The 13th Party Congress Proposals’, China Quarterly, no. 120 (December 1989), pp. 739–770; L. S. Dong, ‘The Recruitment of Cadres and Civil Servants in Mainland China’, Issues & Studies, vol. 29, no. 10 (October 1993), pp. 63–93;
and John P. Burns, ‘Civil Service Reform in China’, Asian Journal of Political Science, vol. 2, no. 2 (December 1994), pp. 44–72.
For legal reform, see Carlos Wing-hung Lo, China’s Legal Awakening: Legal Theory and Criminal Justice in Deng’s Era (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1995).
For the recent improvement in the ‘quality’ of legislators in China, see Kevin J. O’Brien and Lianjiang Li, ‘Chinese Political Reform and the Question of “Deputy Quality”’, China Information, vol. VIII, no. 3 (Winter 1993–94), pp. 20–31.
Sujian Guo, ‘Totalitarianism: An Outdated Paradigm For Post-Mao China?’, Journal of Northeast Asian Studies, vol. XIV, no. 2 (Summer 1995), pp. 62–90.
Also see Yumei Zhang, ‘China: democratisation or recentralisation?’, Pacific Review, vol. 8, no. 2 (1995), pp. 249–65.
See, for example, Su Shaozhi, ‘Problems of Democratic Reform in China’, in Edward Friedman, ed., The Politics of Democratisation: Generalising East Asian Experiences (Boulder: Westview, 1994), pp. 221–231. Also, in the same volume, see Stephen Manning, ‘Social and Cultural Prerequisites of Democratisation: Generalising from China’, pp. 232–248; and Edward Friedman, ‘Conclusion’, pp. 249–258. One study finds that although China’s ‘antidemocratic culture’ is currently ‘stronger’ than its ‘democratic culture’, the ‘democratic elements’ in Chinese political culture are growing.
For this study, see He Baogang, ‘Democratisation: Antidemocratic and Democratic Elements in the Political Culture of China’, Australian Journal of Political Science, vol. 27, no. 1 (March 1992), pp. 120–136.
For the division between hard-liners and soft-liners among the CCP leaders responsible for Hong Kong affairs, see Lo Shiu-hing, ‘The Chinese Communist Party Elite’s Conflicts Over Hong Kong’, China Information, vol. VIII, no. 4 (Spring 1994), pp. 1–14.
For a discussion of the hardliners, moderates and soft-liners among the PRC leaders, see Sonny Lo Shiu-hing and Donald Hugh McMillen, ‘A Profile of the “Pro-China Hong Kong Elite”: Images and Perceptions’, Issues & Studies, vol. 31, no. 6 (June 1995), pp. 98–127.
Jae Ho Chung and Shiu-hing Lo, ‘Beijing’s Relations With the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region: An Inferential Framework For the Post-1997 Arrangement’, Pacific Affairs, vol. 68, no. 2 (Summer 1995), pp. 167–186.
Victor C. Falkenheim, ‘Autonomy and Control: Chinese Organisational Dilemmas of Rural Administrative Reform’, in S. L. Greenblatt et al., eds., Organisational Behaviour in Chinese Society (New York: Praeger, 1981), pp. 191–193.
Lucian Pye, Asian Power and Politics (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1985), p. 189.
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Lo, Sh. (1997). The External Factor and Democratisation. In: The Politics of Democratization in Hong Kong. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25467-5_7
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