Abstract
The Democratic Alliance for Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) has succeeded in expanding its membership and voters’ support from 1992 to the present. It has been playing the dual roles of providing a solid base of political and electoral support for other pro-Beijing and pro-government forces, while simultaneously increasing its popular support to check and balance the pro-democracy camp. The DAB performs strongly at the local District Council elections and it works hand in hand with other pro-Beijing forces to narrow the gap of popular support with the pro-democracy camp. Nevertheless, the DAB’s political position, including its rhetoric of supporting universal suffrage, has ironically become an electoral liability that constrains its popular support. Many pro-democracy voters perceive the DAB as too pro-Beijing and lacking a clear platform supportive of Hong Kong’s democratization, human rights and judicial autonomy vis-à-vis Beijing. Despite its limitations, the DAB remains the most important united front agent for Beijing to win the hearts and minds of more Hong Kong people.
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Notes
- 1.
Wen Qiaoshi, Tongzhan Gongzuo (United Front Work) (Beijing: Chinese Communist Party History Publisher, 2008), pp. 178–179; see also “The United Front Work Regulations of the Chinese Communist Party,” September 23, 2015, in People’s Daily, September 23, 2015.
- 2.
“The United Front Work Regulations of the Chinese Communist Party,” in People’s Daily, September 23, 2015.
- 3.
Ibid.
- 4.
Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, 25th Anniversary Commemoration of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong: Choices and Promises (Hong Kong: Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, 2017), p. 6.
- 5.
Ibid., p. 12.
- 6.
Ibid.
- 7.
Jasper Tsang, Straight Talk (in Chinese) (Hong Kong: Cosmo Books, 1995).
- 8.
Yuen Kei-wang, Hong Kong Road and the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Chong Hwa Book Company, 2011), pp. 211–216.
- 9.
“25th Anniversary Commemoration of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong: Choices and Promises,” p. 92.
- 10.
Robert Michels, Political Parties: A Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy (Kitchener: Batoche Books, 2001).
- 11.
Michael DeGolyer, “Local Elections, Long Term Effects? The Hong Kong District Council Elections of 2011,” pp. 38–59, in http://hktp.org/list/district-council-elections.pdf, access date: April 8, 2018.
- 12.
Yuen Kei-wang, Twenty Years of History of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Chong Hwa Book Company, 2012), pp. 224–222.
- 13.
Huang Zheping and Echo Huang, “A brief history: Beijing’sinterpretations of Hong Kong’s Basic Law, from 1999 to the present day,” in https://qz.com/828713/a-brief-history-beijings-interpretations-of-hong-kongs-basic-law-from-1999-to-the-present-day/, access date: April 8, 2018.
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Lo, S.SH., Hung, S.CF., Loo, J.HC. (2019). The Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong as Flagship of China’s United Front Work. In: China’s New United Front Work in Hong Kong. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8483-7_2
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