The Sino-British agreement on Hong Kong's political development stipulated that the number of directly elected seats in the Legislative Council (LegCo) could not exceed 20, but it did not say how the nine new functional constituencies should be defined. This became one of the gray areas from which Christopher Patten, the last Governor of Hong Kong, drew his package of political reforms for Hong Kong in 1992.

Patten's package of political reforms for the 1995 LegCo election consisted of several proposals. The government decided to raise the number of directly-elected seats from 18 to 20; the multiple-seats, multiple-votes voting system for the geographical constituencies elections was to be changed to a single seat, single vote system, and under the existing 21 functional constituencies, all forms of corporate voting would be replaced by individual voting.

Nine new functional constituencies, encompassing all occupations, would be created to cover people who did not belong to existing functional constituencies. Every worker in the nine new functional constituencies would have a vote. These two arrangements would result in the franchise of the 30 functional constituencies being extended to all eligible voters in Hong Kong's working population of 2.7 million with each voter entitled to two votes. This "one person, two votes" arrangement introduced by Patten at that time was in practice an introduction of universal suffrage in Hong Kong but without explicit characterisation as such.

To Patten, these reforms were a "modest development of democracy (and) were fully compatible with the Joint Declaration, the Basic Law and relevant agreements between Britain and China." But to the Chinese government, Patten's reform package was unacceptable. Although Patten had repeatedly stressed that his reform package did not contravene the Basic Law, the Chinese government criticized Patten's proposals as containing "three contraventions."

Soon after Patten failed to convince the Chinese government to accept his proposals, Lu Ping, director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, held a press conference to denounce Patten's package, and he impressed the world in 1993 with his unflinching comment on the last British governor of Hong Kong: "Mr Patten's mistakes will be written into history and will be condemned for all time."

China saw that the core of controversy between China and Britain over political structure in Hong Kong was not whether democracy should be promoted or whether there should be "openness and fairness" as claimed by the British side, but rather whether international commitments should be honored, whether there should be convergence with the Basic Law, and whether a smooth transition in Hong Kong should be achieved.

On June 30, 1994, the LegCo passed, after a 17 1/2 hours of debate, Patten's constitutional package by a 32-24 margin. The voting in the LegCo meant the end of the Sino-British talks on Patten's reform package. China's next step was the acceleration of its preparation of a "second stove" for Hong Kong.

The bitter debate on Hong Kong's political development, the contest between the executive and legislature, did not stop with the end of Hong Kong's colonial history. The HKSAR, having inherited these colonial legacies, has become a highly politicized society.

The author is former secretary for home affairs of the Hong Kong SAR government.

(HK Edition 06/22/2010 page2)