Hong Kong may still be far from full democracy, but there’s enough uncertainty about the results to give Chinese officials sleepless nights. So in recent months they have ginned up a fresh campaign to accuse pro-democracy politicians of being stooges of foreign powers.

Publications controlled by Chinese officials and their allies are publicizing the donations of a local media entrepreneur, Jimmy Lai, to local pro-democracy parties as well as to the head of the local Catholic Church, Cardinal Joseph Zen, who supports pro-democracy causes. These donations were legal, but the writers allege Mr. Lai is a conduit for foreign money and influence and that the recipients are unpatriotic or even traitors. References to a “gang of four” and a rally of 2,000 people outside the headquarters of the pro-democracy Civic Party calling its leaders “black hands” recall the struggle sessions of the Cultural Revolution.

Eastweek magazine, which is owned by a member of the Standing Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), suggested that Mr. Lai does not have the resources to make $5.4 million in donations over seven years, and that the funds came from the U.S. government. Considering Forbes magazine estimated Mr. Lai’s wealth at $660 million in 2009, this doesn’t make sense. He denies the accusation and is suing Eastweek for libel.

The piece notes suspicious patterns of people registering fake addresses in order to vote in tightly contested races, and today the Hong Kong government charged six people with vote rigging in districts in which pro-Beijing candidates performed well. From AFP:

The Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) said the suspects were among 22 arrested Sunday on suspicion of lying to electoral officials about their residential addresses ahead of last month’s vote.

The vote rigging allegedly took place in the King’s Park constituency of Yau Tsim Mong District. The case is the first to go to court but the government says it is investigating a number of similar irregularities.

The ICAC alleges the six defendants gave “false information to electoral officers that a flat of a building in Yin Chong Street, Mongkok, as recorded in the final register, was their present residential address”.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: election fraud, Hong Kong democracy, smear campaign
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Simon, who moved to Hong Kong in 1992 to take a job with a shipping company, surfaced as a focus of attention last month after the financial records of his boss, Lai, mysteriously popped up on the Internet. They revealed that Lai had made donations of nearly $8 million over five years to pro-democracy groups and individuals — and that Simon, as head of his private office, handled the payments.

The donations broke no laws and were tiny compared with those made to pro-China parties by Hong Kong businessmen whose identities have remained secret. Financial statements show that Lai and a few other donors gave $770,000 to Hong Kong’s Democratic Party over a 12-month period that ended in March 2010, while unidentified donors contributed $6.2 million over the same period to the Democrats’ main rival, the Beijing-friendly Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong.

China’s official government representatives in Hong Kong kept quiet, but an extensive network of party-controlled organizations mobilized for attack. The party still operates in Hong Kong as it did under British rule as an underground organization: It is not registered, and its membership is secret. It nonetheless controls newspapers, trade union groups and a host of other bodies loyal to Beijing.

Hong Kong papers run by the party and a media group owned by a pro-China businessman suggested that the money Lai donated had originated in America, citing as evidence Simon’s former Pentagon job and his position in 2005 as head of the Hong Kong branch of Republicans Abroad. This, said Wen Wei Po, a party-run newspaper, showed that Hong Kong’s pro-democracy camp is led by “political agents nurtured and funded by American intelligence organs.”

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Post tags: Hong Kong democracy, Hong Kong media, Jimmy Lai, next media
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A teacher and a former primary school principal by trade, Szeto started his political career organizing fellow teachers, building Hong Kong’s Professional Teachers’ Union into one of the territory’s most powerful unions.

But he is best known as a democracy advocate. Szeto, like many Hong Kongers, was shocked by Beijing’s military suppression of the pro-democracy protests on Tiananmen, in which at least several hundred people were killed.

Along with others he organized the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Democratic Movements in China. The group, which he headed until his death, became a key advocate for both the victims of Tiananmen and for mainland dissidents jailed by the Chinese government.

See also a report from the New York Times and “Keeping Uncle Wah’s legacy alive‎” from the Hong Kong-based Standard.

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Post tags: Hong Kong activism, Hong Kong democracy, June 4th
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Tens of thousands of Hong Kong protesters marched for democracy on Thursday, with many accusing the opposition Democratic Party of betrayal for backing an electoral reform bill they dismiss as a sell-out.

It was the first time Hong Kong’s legislature had passed major reforms to the electoral process since the city reverted from British to Chinese rule in 1997.

Beijing in 2007 laid out a timetable for democracy, saying universal suffrage would be allowed in 2017 at the earliest. But many democrats do not take Beijing at its word and believe last week’s reforms were half-hearted at best.

“You have betrayed Hong Kong,” shouted some protesters who heckled leaders of the democratic movement as police looked on.

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Post tags: Hong Kong democracy, hong kong politics
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Clever divide-and-rule tactics by Beijing have split the pro-democracy camp in Hong Kong and assured passage of what passes for political reform in the territory. The now-certain passage of the electoral changes, which only marginally enlarge the franchise, represents a victory for chief executive Donald Tsang, who has devoted massive government resources to trying to drum up popular backing for the proposals.

It is doubtful that Tsang had much success with the populace — and even less when he appeared in a debate on the subject with Audrey Eu, who leads the Civic Party which continues to reject the proposal. Even Tsang himself acknowledges he was trounced.

But the barrage of propaganda was effective with the current leadership of the Democratic Party, the largest and oldest of the pro-democracy groups, who felt that a little progress was better than nothing. The new reform package is only a little more democratic than ones rejected by the legislature in 2005. Although pro-government members, mostly drawn from business groups, are in the majority in the legislature, any constitutional changes require a two thirds majority. In 2005 the pro-democracy groups were united in rejecting the reform as totally inadequate.

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Post tags: Donald Tsang, Hong Kong democracy, legco
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A Chinese official on Monday met with Hong Kong’s Democratic Party in Beijing’s first formal contact with the opposition party since this former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

Founded in 1994, the Democratic Party is Hong Kong’s leading opposition party, but it has always been viewed with suspicion by Beijing because it’s harshly critical of China’s authoritarian rule. It’s also a fierce advocate of full democracy in this semiautonomous Chinese territory where the leader is chosen by an 800-member pro-Beijing committee and the 60-member legislature is half-elected, half chosen by interest groups.

The Democratic Party’s first chairman, veteran activist Martin Lee, has been branded a “Chinese traitor” and “running dog for colonialists” by Chinese officials and their allies for briefing foreign officials about Hong Kong’s democracy movement. Many of its legislators have been denied travel documents commonly issued to Hong Kongers that allow them to travel freely to the mainland.

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Thousands of Hong Kong residents appealed to China on New Year’s Day to allow full democracy to be introduced soon in the city, as opposition lawmakers pressed forward with a mass resignation plan later this month.

Congregating outside the city’s historic domed legislature, protesters carried colorful banners with slogans such as “Democracy Now!” and made their way to Beijing’s representative office.

Some demonstrators held aloft portraits of Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, demanding the release of the prominent activist and writer, jailed last week for 11 years on a subversion charge.

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Post tags: Hong Kong democracy, Liu Xiaobo
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The Hong Kong government was Tuesday being pressed to investigate claims that plain-clothes Chinese police dragged activists and journalists across the border into China.

Four activists and two journalists from Hong Kong were detained for three hours in China Sunday after a protest rally at an immigration
control point on the Hong Kong side of the border.

The six, who protested the jailing in China on December 25 of prominent dissident Liu Xiaobo, claim they were dragged across the border by plain-clothes Chinese police.

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The immediacy of democracy demands here has faded somewhat as Beijing officials have ruled out direct elections for the chief executive until 2017 and the legislature until 2020.

The march on Wednesday, on the 12th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to Chinese rule after 156 years of British control, nonetheless drew a large crowd.

Many marchers said they were dissatisfied with government policies to deal with the economy. Unemployment in Hong Kong rose sharply over the winter and leveled off this spring at 5.3 percent — a little over half the rate in the United States, but a shock for a territory where the rate was 3.2 percent last summer.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Hong Kong democracy, Hong Kong handover
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More than 20 Hong Kong democracy campaigners, including nine legislators, were barred from entering Macau ahead of a march against a proposed national security law, according to one of the lawmakers.

The group was stopped by immigration officials and detained for half an hour, before being put on a ferry back to Hong Kong, Emily Lau, deputy chairwoman of the Democratic Party, told AFP.

“They told us we have broken Macau security law, but they could not be more specific,” Lau said.

Among those prevented from entering was well-known activist and legislator “Long Hair” Leung Kwok-hung, chairman of the Democratic Party Albert Ho and former chief executive candidate Alan Leong.

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Post tags: Hong Kong democracy, macau
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