How very disappointing that China has not been able to live up to its commitments."One man, one vote!" the banners of Hong Kong's marchers demanded. "One country, two systems," was the formulaic response as expected of China's President Hu Jintao in the former British colony over the weekend to mark the 10th anniversary of the handover. The "two systems" do not include democracy. The territory has evolved, as Chris Patten, its last British governor points out, into a unique form of government - liberal in civil rights terms, but completely undemocratic.
Political reform in Hong Kong must progress in a "gradual and orderly" fashion, Mr Hu insisted, reiterating Beijing's "harmony" mantra, implying that democratic reform would lead to turmoil. The territory's chief executive officer, Donal Tsang, repeated the vague promise to move towards a system "that is more democratic" but Beijing insists that direct elections will not happen before 2012.
The experience of Chinese rule has not been all bad, however. Despite fears that the handover would cost Hong Kong its dynamism as a capitalist economy, the territory is booming. In 1997 its 6.5 million inhabitants, accounted for 22 per cent of 1.3 billion-strong China's gross domestic product, a product of 35 years of continuous growth. Today that figure has fallen, but because of growth in China, not failure in Hong Kong. Trade with the mainland has risen fourfold since 1997 to $165 billion. Tourism is booming with mainland visitors up to 13.6 million a year from 2.3 million 10 years ago. The territory's economy grew 6.8 per cent last year and its stock exchange was second only to London in terms of capital raised in initial share flotations. At least 100,000 people in the territory claim to be dollar millionaires.
Not surprisingly, sections of the new wealthy are willing to accommodate themselves to the pro-Beijing administration, but the demand for reform remains very much part of the scene. According to democracy activists up to 68,000 turned out at the weekend (police put the figure at 20,000). In 2003 and 2004 demonstrations of up to half a million forced the government to retreat on new security legislation. Chris Patten argues rightly that Beijing must see that the transition to democracy in the medium term is inevitable. It has to "realise it is a moderate community and that the only thing likely to stoke up immoderation is the denial of democratic aspirations," he wrote recently. "As China experiments with greater accountability, a good place for it to release the brakes safely would be Hong Kong."