From: cw@orion.uucp (C.W. Chung)
Subject: Re: Re: My dismay II (Chris Patten)
Organization: Objectivity Inc.
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 92 01:17:10 GMT

In article <6130234@hpopd.pwd.hp.com> yuk@hpopd.pwd.hp.com (Yuk Lun Chan) writes:
>The situation for democratic reform among Hong Kong people is quite clear.
>Most Hong Kong people want more democracy (more than 80 %) now and support
>the reform proposed by Patten. It is after the reaction from China that some
>people change their mind. There are two unknown outcome we are considering.
>1. China would not change her mind.
>2. China softern her postion a little bit (certainly, CCP would not be 
>   happied).

>If 1, shall we press just to show our force. Some people think that it is 
>not worth to do so because we would anger the CCP. And cause damage to
>ourselves. But if we don't press, certainly we would not get 2. All of us
>are wondering what is the real baseline of China.

I might be in the minority who have no problem in seeing where the real
baseline is :-) It is written down in the Basic Laws (well, letter and 
spirit).  Unless external or internal environment has drastically changed,
IMHO, it is a closed issue already.  If British raised the political reform
proposal immediately after TAM, I would support it.  Today, IMHO, it is time
to make the best of the agreement that has been reached and marched
forward to the implementation stage (like selection of Chief for SAR). 
I am not sure if it wise to open another can of worm by re-opening
the issue of direct-election.

>From the posting of schk, Hong Kong netter are generally divided into the
>above two groups (press on and not worth). But the voices from mainlander
>have the same tone. Even some of the more open-mind mainlander whom I think
>is quite conservative in my opinion. If what they typed are same as those
>in the CCP government. I am not surprised that the talks between UK and
>China goes nowhere because the gap is so large.

My observation is same as yours: mainlander are pretty much united in
this issue against the political reform, while HKer are quite splitted.

Part of the reason is the exposure to the fact and argument to both side.
Both sides could put forward argument that are reasonably convincing.  If
you are reading only pro-China materials, you are often limited by all
the fact and argument at hand to come up with truly objective evaluation.
Likewise, if you just read from SCMP/UPI/AP news etc, you would 
know a lot about the pro-Patten fact and argument and are much less-informed
in the anti-Patten argument.  For example, the other day I receieve from
the HK News (ahkcus) the full text of Christine Loh (pro-Patten) in the 
debate with James Tien (anti).  Obviously, the objective way is to send 
out the text of both speeches and let the readers evaluate the merits
of both side.  Afterall, it is a debate, right?  [This is not meant
to be a flame to the news service provided by ahkcus.  I do appreciate
their work and I enjoy reading the news.  I just want to point out the 
bias (conscious or subconscious) that does exist. In this particular case,
they may have tried but did not have the access to Tien's speech.]  

It is back to the motto: truth, the whole truth, and nothing but truth.
IMHO, the media in the west, and probably even the media in China to a 
large degree now, has been pretty good in telling the truth and nothing 
but truth, but often fail miserably in 'the whole truth'.

>I believe that if some of us (I meant those guys in HK) can talk to old 
>Deng directly. We can have a better chance to win over some seats in the
>council. But the trouble seems that Mr. Deng is the sole decision maker and
>he is out of touch. Whenever we suggested a good / bad idea, it may be
>distorted before reaching him (for those try to defence him in 6.4, this
>is a good example). It is sad that China is ruled in this stupid system.

I look forward to a day that the leader of China will engage in a town-hall-
like meeting fielding questions from the audience of students, every day
folks or what not, or something like NightLine where an astute host
could grill the interviewee for the truth.  I don't know if I live that
long :-)

On the other hand, even if you could talk to Deng directly, it may not
helped much.  Deng probably will tell you they have already 'done as
much as they could and have already given in a lot to the wish of the 
people of HK' and has taken many reasonable steps to 'ensure the well-
being of HK'.  If you take a look at the Basic Laws and compare with 
the current political system in China, you'll know the tremendous 
difference and appreciate a bit more in where they come from, even
though we, the people of HK, always feel we want or deserve more
and better.  

-cw-
Newsgroups: soc.culture.hongkong