HONG KONG: Patten Grapples With Lame Duck Image

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Analysis - Yojana Sharma

HONG KONG, Mar 17 1995 (IPS) - China’s refusal to deal in any way with Hong Kong Governor Chris Patten since they clashed over electoral reform has left him grappling with the image of a lame duck leader just waiting for 1997 to make a dignified exit.

A recent poll in Hong Kong’s English-language ‘South China Morning Post’ newspaper found 47 percent of respondents agreeing there was no useful job for Patten here since his bitter confrontation with Beijing. Only 36 percent said he could play an active role in the transition to the 1997 handover to China.

With Patten completely sidelined by China on important issues pertaining to the handover and many local administrative tasks being handed over to local-born Hong Kong officials, many Hong Kong residents are wondering what Patten does all day.

A recent trip to Britain — during which he discussed details of the handover ceremony and insisted that the royal yacht Britannia be made available in 1997 so he may leave the colony in style — only reinforced people’s fears that Patten has little to think about but his own moment of glory in 1997.

Patten himself insists he will continue to set the agenda for policies that do not have to be implemented or paid for after the handover. Issues that straddle 1997, he says, will naturally have to be dealt with in consultation with China.

“I don’t intend to do anything which relinquishes the government’s control of the agenda over the next two and a half years,” Patten told legislators last month.

He said it was important for his government to maintain “maximum authority” if the post-1997 special administrative region government was to enjoy the autonomy promised to it under the 1984 Sino-British treaty on the handover.

But analysts note that there is hardly anything that does not straddle 1997. And as that year approaches Beijing is becoming more and more assertive in wanting a say in the colony’s affairs.

Last month Beijing officials expressed concern over poor land auctions in Hong Kong. Part of the proceeds of land sales are transferred into a reserve fund known as the land fund which will be handed over to the post-1997 administration.

Said one official: “We think (the Hong Kong government should be more careful in budget forecasting. We are consistent, we do not want to see a deficit budget over these years.”

A much sharper rebuke was dealt to retiring financial secretary Hamish Macleod who spoke of consulting closely with China on the British administration’s last budget for Hong Kong to be announced in March 1997, three months before the handover.

Lu Ping, head of the Hong Kong and Macau affairs office in Beijing, said the post-1997 government would be the one to draw up the 1997-98 budget. “It may consult Britain — that’s just about right. It is not for Britain to consult us,” he said. And since the post-1997 government may not be set up, it could be represented by China, Lu added.

He said there should also be some form of consultation on the 1996-97 budget since it would have a direct impact on government revenue and spending after the handover. This is bound to irritate Hong Kong officials who do not believe China has the expertise to run a capitalist economy.

Beijing even objects to Patten’s frequent overseas visits, although in theory these do not pertain to the handover. Lu said only China, the future sovereign of Hong Kong, was in a position to talk about the territory’s future to foreign governments.

“They (the British) don’t have the right to talk about Hong Kong’s future… They have only two years. I think the American people want to have assurances from Chinese leaders and the Hong Kong people,” Lu said before leaving for the United States this week ostensibly to put forward the Chinese view on the handover, thereby underlining Patten’s lame duck image.

And China has asserted its views on many issues that do not straddle the handover. The first phase of a mammoth airport project and a three-billion-dollar sewage treatment system, both intended to be completed before 1997, have been blocked by China which says both projects must be negotiated with them.

Businessmen no longer bother to court Patten, knowing that this year, it is influence with China that counts.

Last week the British media revealed that Hong Kong businessmen, traditionally generous donors to the ruling conservative party’s funds, declined to provide any this year.

Analysts note there is a different mood in Hong Kong with only two years left to British rule. “They feel their business future is in China’s hand’s, not Britain’s,” says one analyst.

Chinese anger over Patten has held up progress in the ambassadorial level Sino-British Joint Liaison Group set up to negotiate details of the 1997 transition, rendering that body almost inoperative.

But with Patten barred by China from visiting Beijing to use his personal negotiating skills to unblock these issues, as past governors have done, there have been various attempts to find other high-level interlocutors acceptable to China.

These include former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who is expected to visit Beijing at the invitation of the Chinese government in the next few months. “A leader like Thatcher has much to offer all of us in advising how to do the best for Hong Kong,” Patten said in Singapore last week.

Also coming to the fore to deal directly with the Chinese is the commander of British forces in Hong Kong, Maj Gen Bryan Dutton. Insiders believe his links with the Chinese army could help resolve some outstanding military and even political issues given the strong influence of the army in the Beijing politburo.

In a recent interview Dutton said: “What I hope to do is develop a more relaxed liaison without a specific agenda so that a professional soldier can talk to a professional soldier on the other side of the border.”

“We can take practical things forward and achieve just a general understanding without an agenda. That will then give us a positive backdrop with which to negotiate on specific issues,” Dutton said, but added that the start of such talks would depend on the other side.

Should either Thatcher or Dutton or others succeed in dealing with China, however, it would merely underline Beijing’s success in depriving Patten of a role in the final years before 1997.