The Role of a Political Interest Group in Democratization of China and Hong Kong

The Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China (HKASPDM) is a cross-border political interest group advocating for democratization in both mainland China and Hong Kong. It was involved in the bold rescue of mainland democrats out of the PRC shortly after the June 1989 Tiananmen crackdown; it constantly exerts pressure on the PRC government to release its political prisoners; it has been influencing the Hong Kong government on the scope and pace of democratization; it communicates with and subsidizes overseas Chinese groups supportive of democratic reforms in China; it is persistently educating the younger generations of Hong Kong and most importantly mainland visitors to Hong Kong on the 1989 Tiananmen tragedy; and its supporters have attempted to cross the border of Hong Kong to Macao to influence the policy of the Chinese government toward political prisoners. As a political interest group based in Hong Kong with cross-border influences on both the mainland and Macao, the Alliance has been making full use of the available political space and freedom of assembly in Hong Kong to achieve their ultimate objective of having a ‘democratic China’. Its existence in the HKSAR is an indication of a certain degree of political tolerance by both the Hong Kong government and Beijing, which have to be very careful of the need to maintain an image of the feasible formula of ‘one country, two systems’ in Hong Kong. Notes 1. Sing Ming, Hong Kong's Tortuous Democratization: A Comparative Analysis (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004); Alvin So, Hong Kong's Embattled Democracy: A Societal Analysis (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999); Lo Shiu-hing, The Politics of Democratization in Hong Kong (London: Macmillan, 1997); Francis Lee and Joseph Man Chan, ‘Generational transmission of collective memory about Tiananmen in Hong Kong: how young rally participants learn about and understand 4 June’, Journal of Contemporary China 22(84), (2013), DOI: 10.1080/10670564.2013.795311 2. David B. Truman, The Governmental Process: Political Interests and Public Opinion (New York: Alfred A. Knopf Inc., 1951), p. 33. 3. Graham K. Wilson, Interest Groups in the United States (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), p. 1; Arthur Bentley, The Process of Government (New Jersey: Transaction Press, 1995), pp. 200–222; Jean Blondel, Comparative Government: An Introduction (New York: Philip Allan, 1990), p. 81. 4. David S. G. Goodman, ed., Groups and Politics in the People's Republic of China (Cardiff: University of Cardiff College Press, 1984); Norman Miners, The Government and Politics of Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1995). The former Soviet Union had ‘interest groupings’ rather than interest groups. H. Gordon Skilling, ‘Groups in Soviet politics: some hypotheses’, in Gordon Skilling and Franklyn Griffiths, eds, Interest Groups in Soviet Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971), pp. 29–31. 5. Another political interest group is the Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor, which was set up in April 1995 and whose activities focus on local media censorship and police power rather than the PRC. See http://www.hkhrm.org.hk/ (accessed 23 November 2010). 6. So, Hong Kong's Embattled Democracy, p. 160. The United Democrats of Hong Kong was set up in 1990. 7. Ibid., p. 161. 8. Ibid. 9. In 1991, the democrats grasped 15 out of 18 directly elected seats in the 60-member Legislative Council. In 1995, they captured 16 out of 20 directly elected seats in the 60-member Legislative Council. 10. So, Hong Kong's Embattled Democracy. 11. Ma Ngok, Political Development in Hong Kong: State, Political Society, and Civil Society (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2007), p. 138. 12. Sing Ming, Politics and Government in Hong Kong (New York: Routledge, 2009), pp. 112–135. 13. Larry Diamond, ‘A comparative perspective on Hong Kong democratization: prospects toward 2017/2020’, in Ming K. Chan, ed., China's Hong Kong Transformed: Retrospect and Prospects Beyond the First Decade (Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong Press, 2008), p. 328. 14. Ibid., p. 328. 15. Suzanne Pepper, Keeping Democracy at Bay: Hong Kong and the Challenge of Chinese Political Reform (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008); Joseph Cheng, ‘The democracy movement in Hong Kong’, International Affairs 65(3), (1989), p. 459. 16. Maria Hsia Chang, Falun Gong: The End of Days (Pennsylvania: Yale University, 2004). 17. Victor Falkenheim, ‘Citizen and group politics in China: an introduction’, in Victor Falkenheim, ed., Citizens and Groups in Contemporary China (Ann Arbor, MI: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1987), pp. 8–15. 18. Suzanne Ogden, Inklings of Democracy in China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), p. 357. 19. Ibid., p. 265. 20. Bruce Gilley, China's Democratic Future: How It Will Happen and Where It Will Lead (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), pp. 122–123. 21. Ibid., pp. 124–127. 22. David S. G. Goodman, ed., The New Rich in China: Future Rulers, Present Lives (New York: Routledge, 2008). 23. Ibid., pp. 24–25. 24. Mobo Gao, ‘Netizenship and its implications for democratization in China’, in Joseph Cheng, ed., Whither China's Democracy: Democratization in China since the Tiananmen Incident (Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong Press, 2011), pp. 162–176. 25. Alvin So, ‘New middle class politics in China: the making of a quiet democratization’, in Cheng, ed., Whither China's Democracy, p. 149. 26. James Anderson, ‘Questions of democracy, territoriality and globalization’, in James Anderson, ed., Transnational Democracy: Political Spaces and Border Crossings (London: Routledge, 2002), pp. 6–38. 27. The HKASPDM website, available at: http://www.alliance.org.hk/ (accessed 17 October 2010). 28. Ibid., (accessed 21 October 2010). 29. Ming Pao, (3 May 2009). 30. Apple Daily, (29 May 2009). 31. Ming Pao, (3 May 2009). 32. Ming Pao, (5 June 2009). 33. Ibid. 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid. 36. Ibid. 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid. 39. Ibid. 40. Ming Pao, (3 May 2009). 41. Yau participated in the election campaign of Donald Tsang in 2005 when the latter ran for the Chief Executive Election in Hong Kong (Ibid.). 42. Ibid. 43. Albert Ho, A Humble Struggle (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010), p. 125. 44. Ibid. 45. The HKASPDM website, available at: http://www.HKASPDM.org.hk/ (accessed 10 October 2010). 46. Ibid. 47. The HKASPDM website, available at: http://www.alliance.org.hk/ (accessed 19 October 2010). 48. Ibid., (accessed 11 October 2010). 49. Ming Pao, (25 November 2010). 50. Ming Pao, (5 June 2004). 51. Ibid. 52. Apple Daily, (26 December 2010). The April the Fifth Action Group was formed in December 1989. The Tiananmen Mothers Group was set up in early 2000 by a group of mothers of the dead victims of the 4 June tragedy in 1989. See www.tiananmenmother.org (accessed 30 November 2010). 53. Apple Daily, (24 July 2010). 54. Ming Pao, (29 November 2010). 55. Hong Kong HKASPDM website, available at: http://www.alliance.org.hk/ (accessed 25 October 2010). 56. Ibid. 57. Ho, A Humble Struggle, p. 121. 58. Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China, available at: http://www.colaw.cn/findlaw/crime/criminallaw2.html (accessed 27 November 2010). 59. Ho, A Humble Struggle, p. 122. Ho revealed that barrister Daniel Fung Wah-kin agreed to bring HK$10,000 from Hong Kong to Beijing's students. 60. See www.newchina.com and www.fdc64.de/index.php (accessed 30 November 2010). The Federation for a Democratic China was set up in September 1989 and was regarded as ‘the largest opposition in the PRC’. See www.boxun.com/hero/2007/fdpusae/9_1.shtml (accessed 30 November 2010). It has the objectives of ‘safeguarding human rights, protecting social justice, developing an economy managed by private citizens, terminating one-party dictatorship, and establishing a democratic China’. It claims to be ‘the largest opposition outside the PRC’. 61. Ho, A Humble Struggle, p. 129. 62. Ming Pao, (25 November 2010). 63. Ming Pao, (21 October 2010). 64. Apple Daily, (6 June 2012), p. A1. 65. ‘June 4 memorial vigil in Hong Kong draws 150,000’, The Epoch Times, (5 June 2010), available at: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/36833/ (accessed 2 November 2010). 66. Ibid. 67. Ibid. 68. AM730 (Hong Kong newspaper), (11 November 2010), available at: http://www.am730.com.hk/article.php?article = 31390&d = 1324 (accessed 12 November 2010). 69. TVB News (Hong Kong), (3 December 2010). 70. Ming Pao, (29 November 2010). 71. Ming Pao, (20 November 2010). 72. The HKASPDM website, http://www.alliance.org.hk/ (accessed 20 November 2010). 73. Sing Tao Daily, (29 November 2010). 74. Ming Pao, (29 November 2010). 75. Ibid. 76. Ibid. 77. Personal interview with Lee Cheuk-yan, 10 October 2011. 78. Personal interview with Lee Cheuk-yan. 79. Personal interview with Lee Cheuk-yan. 80. ‘The Alliance’, available at: http://www.alliance.org.hk/about/report/report_new.html (accessed 16 October 2011). 81. Personal interview with Lee Cheuk-yan. 82. Personal interview with Lee Cheuk-yan. 83. Personal interview with Lee Cheuk-yan. 84. Amnesty International, Urgent Action: Dissident's Relatives Disappear, (11 July 2012), available at: http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/ASA17/021/2012/en/5b940455-50ef-4da1-b5b7-0f8bc730fdd7/asa170212012en.pdf (accessed 27 August 2012)

Alliance · China · Democracy · Democratization · Development economics · Economics · Interest group · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Hong Kong and Taiwan Politics · Law

• Christian Activism in the Hong Kong Pro-Democracy Movement

  Tsz-Him Lai•Review of Religion and Chinese…•2024

  Add to list

• Hong Kong’s Growing Separatist Tendencies against China’s Rise

  Open Access•Qin Pang, Fan Jiang•Journal of Current Chinese Affairs•2019

  Add to list

• When a historical analogy fails

  Open Access•Francis Lee, Joseph Chan et al.•Memory Studies•2017

  Add to list