doc_text:  Patten Poses Seven Challenges to China in Second Annual Report--Patten's New Tactics and Challenges to China [passage omitted] 1.
  Abandoning his "from politics to politics" stance, which is that politics is self-justifying and self-sufficient, Patten has now woven politics into the lives of the people of Hong Kong, making it part and parcel of the local way of life and inseparable from the war on corruption, the rule of law, freedom, education, and the quality of governance -- all "perennial concerns" in Chinese society.
  [passage omitted] The way Christopher Patten talked last year, you would have thought he were in Britain.
  Now Patten takes life in Hong Kong as his point of departure, arguing that democratic politics of a high quality are what the people of Hong Kong need to maintain the "Hong Kong system."
  How can the Chinese authorities be persuasive if they reject his argument?
  What alternative can the Chinese offer?
  If the Chinese come up with their own agenda, what must it contain that would invalidate the British position?
  How to sever the linkage between "politics" and the "Hong Kong way of life?"
  When Hong Kong fought for democracy in the 1980's, Xu Jiatun [6079 1367 1470] tried countering Hong Kong's capitalist primary democracy with advanced socialist democracy.
  Subsequently China rejected Hong Kong's political demands by questioning their timetable.
  After Patten came to Hong Kong, the Chinese could no longer keep acting anti-democratic.
  All they could do was to declare that they too were for democracy but that the dispute between China and Britain is not one over the extent of democracy but one involving trust between two nations.
  Now that Patten has made politics an integral part of the life of the Hong Kong people and their institutions, can the Chinese continue to counter it with the argument that it is all a matter of trust between nations?
  2.
  In contrast to his past arrogance and wilfulness, Patten now says, "I have grown to like Hong Kong more and more.
  I have deep feelings for this place."
  He hopes that "as it advances with big strides into the 21st century, Hong Kong will be like a beacon, shining brightly as if to announce its glorious achievements.
  It will also set an excellent example demonstrating that in a system of freedom, people can successfully overcome all sorts of adversity and difficulties and, hand in hand, create a wonderful future."
  (Section 190) After the governor presented his first annual report to the Legislative Council last year, the Chinese authorities initially took a heavy-handed approach.
  It was so severe and threatening that it gave the impression China was prepared for mutual destruction, with Britain, Hong Kong, and itself all going down the tube.
  In doing so, the Chinese only succeeded in turning public opinion strongly against them.
  Even as public approval of Patten slipped and opposition rose, anti-Chinese feelings in Hong Kong also gained ground.
  Politically speaking, the Chinese paid dearly for opposing Patten.
  At the time the Chinese could convincingly attack Patten for his overbearing ways, arrogant, domineering, stubborn, and intractable.
  Now Patten has changed his attitudes.
  He may still be impenetrably thick-headed, but he has mellowed considerably and become more practical.
  What should be China's attitude now?
  If the Chinese try to be as mellow and practical as Patten, that may be interpreted as a compromise.
  Yet if they persist in their shrill ways, they may lose points.
  3.
  Patten's second annual report to the Legislative Council is replete with praises for the people of Hong Kong, for their accomplishments, and for the superiority of the Hong Kong system, calling it a miracle of human society.
  The report also contains endless comparisons with Britain, Australia, and the Netherlands, countries which the local people are familiar with.
  Of course this is the stock in trade of politicians in every democratic country, but it also shows that the relationship between the ruler and the ruled under a democratic system is just what the people of Hong Kong need psychologically at this point in time.
  Having inherited the tradition of the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, the Chinese Communists have always considered Hong Kong alien land.
  It is hard for the Chinese to sing the praises of the Hong Kong system, Hong Kong people, and Hong Kong society.
  During the anti-Patten campaign last year, the Chinese opposed everything that was associated with Patten.
  What Patten said about Hong Kong's values and its superiority were all satirized by the Chinese media, so much so that one could hardly tell right from wrong anymore.
  The "anti-Patten" campaign came perilously close to being an "anti-Hong Kong" movement.
  The objective of the Chinese was to launch an all-out attack on Patten, stopping at nothing.
  In so doing, however, they in effect repudiated many of the values of the system of Hong Kong.
  If China continues its negative attitude toward Hong Kong, what sort of price will it have to pay?
  If, on the other hand, it echoes Patten and begins heaping praises on Hong Kong and emulating the Hong Kong system, can the Chinese Government bring itself to do that?
  Would praising Hong Kong send a wrong message to the local people, misleading them into thinking that China would compromise with Patten and go along with him?
  Would that encourage "Hong Kong chauvinism?"
  4.
  Patten has modified his political reform proposals in two major ways.
  First, he has replaced functional groups with statutory bodies even as he insists that voting be based on the individual and reduces the overall number of voters from the 2.70 million called for last year to 1 million.
  The second concession is that the electoral committee would be composed of four groups following the organizational model of the second legislative council after 1997 as spelled out in the Basic Law.
  Under Patten's original proposal, the committee was to be made up of popularly elected district representatives (in its entirety or to a large extent).
  Nevertheless, Patten sticks by his original plan to have the 400 members of the electoral committee be chosen through election.
  Moreover, this concession comes with strings attached; the proposal that elected representatives be allowed to serve out their terms beyond 1997 (the "through train" concept) is part and parcel of his overall plan.
  Britain and China reopened negotiations in April mainly because public opinion forced them back to the conference table.
  Both sides knew full well the price of defying public wishes.
  They may not reach an agreement if they negotiate, but they are bound to lose if they don't even talk.
  Hong Kong people hope that something will come out of their talks.
  A dozen or so public opinion surveys by the Hong Kong Statistical and Business Research Council invariably came up with one finding: The people of Hong Kong want both sides to make concessions and reach an accord.
  Now that Patten has made the first move by taking the initiative to give way, naturally the public wants the Chinese side to make corresponding concessions in order to narrow the difference between the two sides.
  How should the Chinese Government respond?
  If they continue to insist that Patten is guilty of the "three violations" and refuse to make adjustments and concessions, they would have a lot of ideological work to do on the Hong Kong people, besides giving Patten a reason to withdraw from the talks.
  However, if they give way, they would be handing a victory to Patten.
  Patten's initial demand was an electorate of 2.7 million people.
  It has now been scaled back to 1 million, still significantly more than the 200,000-300,000 people who would have been eligible to cast votes for the original 21 functional seats.
  How extensive a concession should the Chinese make?
  What about the "through train" proposal?
  As the seven letters between the foreign ministers indicate, both sides agreed that the same electoral arrangements should remain in place from 1995 through 1999, allowing legislators elected in 1995 to serve out their terms through 1999.
  Then came the 4 June tragedy of 1989 and the big victories scored by democratic groups in direct Legislative Council elections in 1991.
  The Chinese wavered on the "through train" idea and the British came up with their own set of arrangements for the 1995 elections.
  Since the controversy was triggered off by China's plan to scrap the "through train" proposal, would it make concessions on this very issue?
  5.
  Patten's second annual report to the Legislative Council was an honest self-examination of his past commitments regarding the people's livelihood and the work that had been done.
  He talked about things he had accomplished and things he had not, laying it all out in an honest, earnest, and realistic way.
  One year after arriving in Hong Kong, Patten has certainly commanded much authority with his solid political ideas.
  More than that, his skills, language, and operating method as a politician as well as the closeness between him and the public have also set a standard that the leader of the post-1997 special administrative region [SAR] must meet.
  During the subsequent question period, Legislative Council members lined up to point out the errors in his report.
  Their exchange, complete with questions, answers, charges, and explanations, was democracy in action, live.
  Public statements by Chinese officials to this date still contain a lot of empty bureaucratic gobbledygook, devoid of a spirit of seeking truth from facts.
  They always lecture the masses on the omnipotence, all-knowingness, invincibility, infallibility, and greatness of government, instead of talking about self-restraint, self-discipline, and self-control.
  The real issues are never aired in the open.
  Patten demonstrates the modern Western political approach while the Chinese remain wedded to propagating the superiority of "big, complete, and all-powerful government" going back thousands of years.
  How should the Chinese respond to Patten's new methods indicative of a modern open society?
  Should they throw a tantrum and pick a fight with Patten over this?
  Or should they take a leaf from Patten's book and try to communicate with the masses using similar methods?
  Would the SAR chief after 1997 measure up to Patten's standard?
  After the June 4 incident, Deng Xiaoping raised a lot of expectations when he said that he would "get several practical things done."
  Yet no documents have ever been issued regarding the "practical issue."
  Have they really materialized?
  Patten makes endless allusions to what is good about the Hong Kong system and what is bad about the Chinese system, one obvious example being the way the two governments level with the people.
  Even more striking is the open dialogue and debate that took place in an atmosphere of freedom between Patten and the people of Hong Kong on an equal plane after the governor presented his second annual report (in which the Chinese authorities also played an active part).
  6.
  For the first time, Patten devoted an entire chapter to Sino-British relations.
  He spent a lot of time emphasizing the close ties between China and Hong Kong and the numerous connections between the two, including cooperation in administrative matters and environmental protection.
  In the future, bridges of the concrete and steel variety will be built to link the two together.
  Even more important will be bridges of the invisible type.
  Sino-Hong Kong relations mean China learning from Hong Kong's value system and success story and Hong Kong drawing support form China's strengths.
  Patten said, "When many places in the world identify with Hong Kong's value system and seek to duplicate its success story, would the world become a better place, a more prosperous place?
  Or will it become less prosperous?
  We all know the answers to these questions."
  (Section 182)
  Patten took the initiative to define the relations between China and Hong Kong, giving substance to their contacts as well as clarifying the nature of such relations.
  Hong Kong represents progress and as such should be imitated; China represents power and should therefore be a source of support for Hong Kong to tap into.
  Together they can take bold strides into the next century.
  China has always looked at Hong Kong unilaterally from top to bottom, demanding that it fall in line with China and not the other way round.
  The kind of Sino-Hong Kong relations China wants is one in which Hong Kong complies with all China's orders and satisfies every Chinese demand.
  Whatever the merits of the case, no matter who represents progress and who represents backwardness, the Chinese want Hong Kong to simply blend itself into the entity known as China.
  As for making the Hong Kong system "living, automatic, and autonomous," the relations between China and the special entity of Hong Kong, how the two should be integrated and to what extent, as well as the costs and benefits of such integration... none of that has been considered at length.
  Nor do the Chinese allow such consideration; mention differences between the two systems and they cry "abetting," "sowing discord," "setting one party against another."
  A major incompatibility in Sino-Hong Kong relations is that the sovereign body, namely China, is large but backward, whereas Hong Kong, which has no sovereignty, is small but advanced.
  A unilateral emphasis on China's sovereignty would result in integration of a regressive type, meaning that an advanced Hong Kong would have to reach down to accommodate a backward China.
  A one-sided emphasis on Hong Kong's non-sovereign status is both impossible and disastrous.
  How to define Sino-Hong Kong relations down to the details is a major challenge facing Hong Kong in the future.
  The success or failure of this relationship will impact the relations between the mainland and Taiwan and those between the central government on the mainland and the localities (a perennial problem in Chinese politics going back thousands of years).
  7.
  In his annual report to the Legislative Council, Patten noted subtly and not so subtly that where Hong Kong was free to make up its mind, things had gone well in the past year, but where consultation with China was necessary, nothing seemed to have worked well.
  In Section 172, he said.
  "...outstanding achievements have been scored on all fronts during the past year...with one lone exception," which was Hong Kong's effort to "further its understanding with China" and "replace unproductive speculation with sincere trust."
  (Section 173) Why?
  "Not because of a lack of effort, a lack of determination to improve bilateral relations on Hong Kong's part."
  (Section 174) "The reason is that we still have not been able to convince Chinese officials that Hong Kong citizens' expectations about the development of their political system are in no way excessive but are reasonable and should be met, that they form part of the natural evolution of a society as it matures and becomes more sophisticated.
  In a certain sense, political development is also a prerequisite for Hong Kong's remaining a leading player in international trade.
  These expectations do not constitute a threat to China now and will not do so in the future.
  The fact of the matter is that these expectations can be met within the framework of "one nation, two systems."
  (Section 175)
  Instead of saying the Chinese refused to go along or disagreed, Patten said euphemistically that they (meaning himself and his associates) had failed to convince Chinese officials.
  In fact his meaning is very clear.
  We all know what the problem is: The failure by the Chinese authorities to see what Patten and others have been able to see.
  Cases in point: Pier No. 9, the airport, the harbor, the Sino-British liaison group.
  Patten covered all these problems at great length and, in so doing, seemed to have put the ball back in China's court.
  Last year the Chinese tried to shoot down Patten's political reform plan in an overbearing way by resorting to economic pressure, ready and willing to destroy all three parties.
  What the Chinese wanted to prove was that Patten would not be able to accomplish a thing without China's cooperation, that he would end up with not just one broken leg, but two broken legs.
  Basically the Chinese have achieved this goal.
  On the other hand, the Chinese were also taking a risk.
  The people of Hong Kong might blame the Chinese Government for the delay in solving all those problems that need to be tackled urgently.
  What are the Chinese going to do about these feelings?
  How to point the accusing finger back at the British?
  How to undo the damage the delay has caused Hong Kong and China (particularly Guangdong)?
  Who should be held politically accountable?
  In the second half of the year, will the Chinese continue to relax their economic austerity drive or will they tighten the belt again?
  [passage omitted]
summary_text: Governor Patten has woven politics into the lives of the people of Hong Kong.
  Though he was opposed, the Chinese paid politically for that opposition.
  Patten has modified his position and replaced functional groups with statutory bodies and a four group electoral committee and scaled back his demand for an electorate of 2.7 million to one million.
  Britain and China reopened negotiations under public pressure.
  His approach is Western; the Chinese see the superiority of an all-powerful government.
  He has emphasized cooperation on administrative and environmental matters.
  China wants Hong Kong compliance with its orders.
  Patten said that when Hong Kong made decisions, things went well, but if consultation with China was necessary, nothing worked.