From: "IAAYROS@MVS.oac.ucla.edu" <IAAYROS@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU>
Subject:      motive vs. outcome
Reply-To: "IAAYROS@MVS.oac.ucla.edu" <IAAYROS@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU>
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 16:10:00 GMT
Comments: To: china-nt <china-nt@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>

For many decades or even more then a century, hundred of thousands slaves
were oppressed and exploited by planters in the United States.  Their equal
rights as human being were long over due.  Finally the time came when some
white people proposed to give back slaves freedom, and if the planters
were not willing to do it, these people who advocated it would fight
against them to liberate the slaves.

I wonder if the motivation question came out at that time: "Why do white
people want to liberate us?  If they do care about our human right, they
should have done it long ago.  There must be some scheme and one thing is
already clear: my current master has tightened his security measure on me
and my life is more miserable."

I am not majored in America history, the only reason I learned about that
movement is from my high school text book:

    The capitalism in the north part of the US needed more labor force
    to work for their factories while the south planters wouldn't let
    the slaves go, so the capitalist class and their representatives
    advocated to liberate slaves and thus caused the Civil War, (which
    in Chinese is called South-North War.)

According to the theory described above, which is typically of Marxism, the
motive of the north party of the Civil War was not saintly.

But history tells us that the slaves did not waste too much time debating the
motivation of the North Army, (probably because there were not many MAs
and PhDs among them).  As a matter of fact, thousands of black people died
during that war, heroically on the battle field under Lincoln's command.
Though having no statistics at hand, I believe there must be a number of
black slaves died when forced to fight for the South Army or died under
more severe control by their owners than if no such a war.

If the motive of the North Army of the America Civil War was not pure and
golden, then the British governor's of its proposal might be much selfish,
or even "evil", as alleged by some of the posting.

But motivation is often a complicated thing to investigate, more difficult
to prove.

Rather than debating Patten's motive behind his reform proposal or
emotionally comparing HK with GZ, I suggest that we spent more time to
study and exchange opinions on the possible outcome of the move and things
involved: is there any possibility to use this as an opportunity to gain
some progress toward democracy and maintain it after 1997.

For example, is there any way for HK's Legislature Bureau to gain some
budget power to control the process of its finance and major spending such
as the airport construction?  If so, the elected representatives will have
more say on how to use the $100 billion, both before and after 1997.

Without enough democracy in effect, there is always chances that an
official in charge would use power at hand to abuse the treasure that
belongs to the people.  While now the British governor allegedly is going
to give construction contract to not-the-best bidder or even unqualified
company in order to help UK's "declining economy", after 1997 a
leader coming from Beijing could also abuse the power just for his/her
children to secure financial sponsor from a contractor to go abroad.
After 10 years open door policy but without political reform, this kind of
practice is not unusual nowadays.

Though somewhere in the 1984 declaration or the Basic Law, CG promised not
to take advantage of HK's financial resource for central government's use.
But it is not unimaginable that an assigned leader will, "in the name of
Hong Kong people", donate millions or billions to a project run by a
Premier at Beijing, for example, when the Three Gorges dam is in halfway
and needs cash badly.

Lian Zheng thought "the people in HK are very good-hearted people, ... they
deserve democracy to protect themselves against possible troubles in the
future." But he consider they are politically naive and "need to be careful
to those who use the name of democracy for other purposes."

I think HK people are not less mature than CSS in US or at TAM square, they
have quite much freedom of speech and have been openly discussing their
future on the median since 1984.  They have elected many pro-democracy
representatives into the Legislature Bureau and its recent majority vote for
supporting political reform is telling what most HK people want for their
life after 1997.  Also I think HK people know how to maneuver between
British and CG.  I don't think they will ever invoke a civil war
against PLA on such a small zone.  They might demonstrate after the 1997
transition, but they will dissolve the assembly if PLA's tanks roaring
toward them.

In the other hand, CG may threaten fiercely now. But after taking control
of HK, it will try its best to avoid to repeat the bloody scene like "6.4".
After all, this is a very internationalized place and CG relies it heavily
on trading with the world. CG may "revoke" some or all of the democratic
progress obtained before 1997. But that's it. As long as CG want to
continue the economy reform and open door policy to survive, it cannot
afford to crack down and destroy this important bridge.

In summary, I am pretty positive about the outcome of HK people's effort to
obtain more democracy for their life.

Kevin
Newsgroups: talk.politics.china