北京曾多次反对港英政府引入选举
杰安迪 2014年10月28日
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1997年，英国将香港主权移交中国。早在上世纪50年代，英国的多位殖民总督就寻求在香
港推行普选，但最终因为中共领导人的压力而放弃了努力。
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香港最后一任殖民总督彭定康积极倡导在该地区实行有限的选举，引发了北京的激烈反对
。
北京——反对香港亲民主抗议活动的人，普遍会以这个问题还击：在英国剥夺香港民众自
治权的那么多年里，普选卫士身在何处？这种反问在中国内地尤为常见。
“150多年间，自诩民主典范的英国没有给过香港同胞哪怕一天的实在民主，”共产党的
喉舌《人民日报》在前不久的一篇评论文章中说。“直到1982年至1997年香港回归前的15
年间，港英政府抱着‘不可告人’之心开启了香港民主的‘超速发展’之路。”
但英国国家档案馆(National Archives)最近公开的一些文件显示，从上世纪50年代开始
，管治香港的殖民总督多次寻求推行民众选举，但迫于北京的中共领导人的压力，最终放
弃了那些努力。
这些用打字机打出的文件，是香港两家报纸的记者请求公开的一批外交档案的一部分。档
案显示，中国领导人极力反对香港实行民主的前景，以至于威胁称，如果伦敦试图改变现
状，就会入侵香港。
档案显示，主管香港事务的中国高官廖承志曾在1960年表示，“我们将毫不犹豫采取积极
行动，解放香港、九龙和新界。”他提到的这些地区当时处于英国的管治下，现已归还中
国。
另一份文件记述了早前两年的一次会议。在那次会议上，周恩来总理告诉英国的一名军官
，任何在香港引入哪怕一点点自治的尝试，都会被视作“非常不友善的举动”和“阴谋”
。周恩来表示，这种做法会被认为是让香港走上独立道路的手段。
这些威胁达到了预期的效果。在随后的几十年里，英国没有为在香港引入选举民主做出多
少努力。
除了证实中国最初反对香港实行民主的时间，比广为人知的早了几乎半个世纪之外，这些
文件连同前殖民地官员已经公开出版的叙述，也突显出随着上世纪80年代初，双方开始讨
论香港的未来，北京的态度变得愈发激烈。后来到上世纪90年代初，最后一任香港总督彭
定康(Chris Patten)开始大力倡导在香港实行有限选举时，北京的公开反对变得更加强硬
。
最后，彭定康无视中国称民主会招致混乱的论调，赋予了香港民众选举30名立法局议员的
权利。当时的立法局共有60名成员。当时的新闻报道称，时任香港事务主管的中国高官鲁
平对此举感到极度愤怒，称彭定康“在历史上，要成为香港的千古罪人”。
今天北京的批评人士称，英国在1842年就接管香港，然而在民主的游戏里却姗姗来迟。这
一点，北京的批评人士说对了。
在上世纪50年代推行民主的冲动之前，英国已被赶出了印度，并且正在努力阻止多个殖民
地的反抗。“当时，英国正在全世界许多英属殖民地推行民主，当时的观点是，对香港也
应该一视同仁，”香港大学法学院副教授贾廷思(Danny Gittings)说。
遭到北京的拒绝后，英国直到上世纪90年代，香港即将脱离英国管治时，才取得共识推动
民众选举。历史学家称，英国希望民主能让香港民众镇静下来，并确保英国投资的稳定。
当时香港人对于回到实行共产主义的中国治下感到焦虑不安。
在当时公开发表的言论中，彭定康曾表示，他认为香港人理应在本地的治理中扮演一定角
色。他在1992年对记者说，“香港人完全能够以负责、成熟、克制和理性的方式，在更大
程度上参与自身事务的管理。”
彭定康最近为抗议者的诉求所做的辩护，招致了《人民日报》的攻击。该报的评论承认他
上世纪90年代在推动民主方面起到的作用，但又提出，他的目的是制造在内地与香港之间
制造“不小的隔阂”。
为了塑造历史叙事，中国媒体最近发表了大量评论文章，这可能恰恰增强了许多香港活动
人士的决心。他们表示，这种高压手段让他们想起了自己为之奋斗的政治自由和新闻自由
。这些自由在中国其他地方都不存在。
香港科技大学的政治学者成名(Ming Sing)说，“北京面对这么多香港人无耻地说谎，我
个人非常震惊，因为香港人清楚地记得过去的英国政府和中国政府之间就民主展开的角力
。”
中国并未兑现出兵香港的威胁，其中一个原因是，他们希望“一国两制”的模式可以促成
台湾的和平统一。台湾是一个自治岛屿，中国声称对其拥有主权。北京也没有兴趣破坏香
港极为成功的经济。在中国内地基本上隔绝于工业化国家的当时，香港是从事外贸和获得
硬通货的重要渠道。
“我们希望收回的，是一个发展良好的香港，而不是一片废土，”上世纪60年代初，廖承
志如是说。
尽管对在家门口实行民主明显心存疑虑，但北京在1990年承诺，在收回香港主权后，将通
过普选产生香港领导人。《人民日报》1993年援引鲁平的话说，“将来香港如何发展民主
，完全是香港自治权范围内的事，中央政府不会干涉。”
但在1997年，香港移交后不久，中国就废除了彭定康新推行的立法会选举。面对太多民主
，中国干脆“另起炉灶”，正如鲁平早些时候暗示的中国可能的做法。
然而此后，直接选举的议员达到35名，比彭定康的规定还增加了五人。（立法会的另外35
名成员由职业团体或特殊利益团体遴选。）
同样，北京还指出，它承诺允许香港人从2017年开始，通过普选产生领导人的做法，也比
英国统治香港时更为民主。
但在8月，北京为这次选举颁布了新的规定，要求由一个1200人组成的委员会对候选人进
行审查。这1200人多数是亲北京人士。
该制度可能比英国统治下的制度更加民主，但却不是香港民主人士期望的不受限制的自决
。
“回顾历史，共产党似乎做了许多不打算履行的承诺，这也是人们如此愤怒的原因，”约
翰·霍普金斯大学(Johns Hopkins University)社会学者孔诰烽(Ho-fung Hung)说。他上
世纪80、90年代在香港长大。
然而实际上，对于占领香港街头一个多月的民众来说，这些关于历史的争吵并没有太多意
义。
现年19岁的婚庆摄影师马克斯·唐(Max Tang)正待在政府总部外的一个帐篷里。香港回归
中国时，他还是个蹒跚学步的孩子。
“香港在移交中国之前的做法并不重要，”他说。“这是我第一次拥有表达民主诉求的机
会。我们的要求很简单，我们想要选择自己的领导人。”
http://cn.nytimes.com/china/20141028/c28hongkong/zh-hant/
英国国家档案馆(National Archives)最近解密的外交档案:
The secret history of Hong Kong’s stillborn democracy
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China's contention that it's giving Hong Kong more democracy than the Brits
ever did is a little disingenuous.(Reuters)
By Sep. 29, peaceful protesters had been clogging Hong Kong’s downtown for
less than a day, but to the Chinese Communist Party this already smacked of
ingratitude. Here’s an excerpt from an editorial that ran that day (link in
Chinese) in the People’s Daily, the party’s official mouthpiece, entitled “
No one cares more about Hong Kong’s future destiny than the entire Chinese
people”:
Since 1842, when Hong Kong was reduced to being a British colony, our fellow
citizens of Hong Kong were but second- or third-class citizens suffering
unequal treatment. During the 1950s, anti-colonial liberation movements
roiled its colonies and Britain bought off its people’s will, and yet Hong
Kong’s political reform plan was unfairly dismissed as “excessively
dangerous.” In 150 years, the country that now poses as an exemplar of
democracy gave our Hong Kong compatriots not one single day of it. Only in
the 15 years before the 1997 handover did the British colonial government
reveal their “secret” longing to put Hong Kong on the road to democracy…,
creating a not inconsiderable gulf between the mainland and Hong Kong. Yet it
was only after the handover—and thanks to none other than the Chinese
central government’s diligence—that Hong Kong could begin to hope that
within just two decades it would get to elect its chief executive through
universal suffrage. Who has the real democracy, and who has the fake democracy
—compare the two and judge.
Of course, this argument doesn’t change the fact that the Chinese government
’s version of “universal suffrage” requires that Hong Kong voters pick
from candidates Beijing has essentially selected for them, reneging on past
promises.
That aside, the Communist Party’s new pet argument seems to make some sense—
or at least, it would have until recently. In the last couple years, however,
the British government has declassified a cache of colonial records that tell
a very different story.
Take for instance this document, which describes what British
lieutenant-colonel Kenneth Cantlie relayed to British prime minister Harold
MacMillan about his conversation with premier Zhou Enlai in early 1958:
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(British National Archives)
In it, Zhou says Beijing would regard allowing Hong Kong’s people to govern
themselves as a “very unfriendly act,” says Cantlie. Not long thereafter,
in 1960, Liao Chengzhi, China’s director of “overseas Chinese affairs,”
told Hong Kong union representatives that China’s leaders would “not
hesitate to take positive action to have Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New
Territories liberated” if the Brits allowed self-governance:
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(British National Archives)
These documents—which, perhaps unbeknownst to the People’s Daily, Hong Kong
journalists have been busily mining (link in Chinese)—show that not only
were the Brits mulling granting Hong Kong self-governance in the 1950s; it
was the Chinese government under Mao Zedong who quashed these plans,
threatening invasion. And the very reason Mao didn’t seize Hong Kong in the
first place was so that the People’s Republic could enjoy the economic
fruits of Britain’s colonial governance.
This revelation suggests that the Chinese government’s current claims of
democratic largesse are somewhat disingenuous, says Ho-Fung Hung, sociology
professor at Johns Hopkins University.
“The whole argument that Beijing’s offer is better than the British’s—it
no longer holds,” he tells Quartz. “Beijing can no longer say there were
bad things during colonial times because it’s now been revealed that it was
part of the force that maintained the status quo in Hong Kong. Beijing is
partially responsible for the lack of democracy in Hong Kong before 1997.”
It’s long been known that in the 1980s, once the Brits knew they were going
to be leaving and tried to speed up democratic reform, the Chinese government
threatened them not to, notes Hung (a point to which the People’s Daily
editorial obliquely refers).
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British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and Chinese premier Zhao Ziyang
exchange signed copies of the Hong Kong handover agreement in Beijing on Dec.
19, 1984.(AP Photo/Neal Ulevich)
In the early 1980s, when prime minister Margaret Thatcher began negotiating
with China’s leaders—president Deng Xiaoping and premier Zhao Ziyang—what
grew into the Sino-British Joint-Declaration of 1984, Britain had leverage.
Treaties signed in the 1800s stipulated that the Brits were only to hand back
the northern swath of Hong Kong called the New Territories—and not Hong Kong
island or Kowloon (i.e. the major financial and commercial areas), which
China also wanted. Beijing also needed the handover to go smoothly in order
to convince Taiwan, an independent island state that it nominally laid claim
to, that the “one country, two systems” approach could work. In addition,
Hong Kong was still a major financial center and trade hub for China too.
But China had leverage too. In fact, in 1982, when negotiations began, the
Hang Seng Index was already shaky due to fears that if China took over, the
Communist Party would gut Hong Kong’s rule of law or nationalize wealth,
causing the market to crash and capital to flee:
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(Wikimedia Commons)
The Brits needed to calm markets and ensure financial stability. That meant
making sure the handover agreement protected British financial interests. But
as documents from Thatcher’s archive declassified in 2013 reveal, it also
meant publicly cooperating with China. In the following memo (pdf, p.3),
Thatcher tells Deng that the issue wasn’t what happened in 1997, but what
everyone in 1982, when they were talking, expected to happen:
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Thatcher’s handwritten margin notes appear to refer to the Cultural
Revolution and the Gang of Four trial, both of which were socially
disruptive.(Margaret Thatcher Foundation)
And here’s an example of Beijing’s threats to British diplomats on
preserving Hong Kong’s status quo, from the same memo recording Deng and
Thatcher’s discussion (p.10):
http://img.qz.com/2014/10/deng-to-thatcher-on-time-and-forumla-of-handover.png
(Margaret Thatcher Foundation)
What the documents from even earlier show is that this showdown—Brits
floating democracy, Chinese leaders threatening to invade—had been going on
since the 1950s, three decades before we previously knew.
Why did neither ever happen? Hung says that the Brits wanted to make sure they
’d protected their economic interests before they departed, much the way
they did in Singapore and Malaysia. And when Mao founded the People’s
Republic of China in 1949, he and Zhou Enlai decided not to seize Hong Kong—
which the British at the time expected—because the capitalist territory was
their lone source of foreign exchange and a strategic portal for
manufacturing trade that would eventually drive China’s double-digit growth.
As the newly declassified documents reveal, China’s leaders explicity wanted
to “preserve the colonial status of Hong Kong” so that the People’s
Republic could “trade and contact people of other countries and obtain
materials” it badly needed.
Both the British and the Chinese governments benefited from the nearly
50-year deadlock of Hongkongers seeing neither democracy nor an invasion. But
as the recent protests eerily hint, this limbo can’t endure forever.
http://qz.com/279013/the-secret-history-of-hong-kongs-stillborn-democracy/