Hong Kong leader seeks road to democracy

Hong Kong’s electoral system should be reformed by the time his successor is chosen in 2007, the former colony’s Chinese leader said today, but he stopped short of calling for democracy.

Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa also said changes should be made before Legislative Council elections are held in 2008, but in a report to Beijing he said any reforms should come slowly and he made no specific recommendations.

Tung made his comments in a news conference that sought to calm a raging controversy over Hong Kong’s political evolution, with thousands of local people clamouring for full democracy but Beijing insisting it will control any changes.

Asked about his specific intentions, Tung said Hong Kong would have to wait to see whether Beijing will agree to changing the status quo, and if so, then it would be time to go into details.

Tung was chosen by an 800-member committee loyal to Beijing, but he is hugely unpopular among Hong Kong’s 6.8 million residents who see him as a puppet to the central government.

Pro-democracy MPs accused Tung of acting too quickly by issuing his recommendations to Beijing without adequately consulting the public.

“He’s operating inside a black box,” said Fred Li from the opposition Democratic Party. “He pays no respect to the views of the Hong Kong people.”

Beijing stepped into the dispute last week with a ruling from China’s most powerful legislative committee that any electoral reforms in Hong Kong would require advance approval from the central government.

Critics charged that China was arbitrarily rewriting Hong Kong constitutional law to thwart the territory’s democratic aspirations, and a crowd estimated at up to 20,000 people marched in protest to Beijing’s local representative office on Sunday.

Under Hong Kong’s partially democratic system, voters will be allowed to directly elect 30 of their 60 MPs in September, up from just 24 four years ago. The rest are picked by special interest groups that tend to side with Beijing.

Although full democracy is set out as a goal in Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law, there is no prescribed timetable.

The United States has been critical of Beijing’s stance on democracy in Hong Kong, drawing fire from China that it was improperly meddling.