openDemocracy: What was the demonstration like on 1 July?

Christine Loh: It was stultifyingly hot! Quite a few people fainted but there was a general sense of good cheer. There was rock music. There was a radio station with a nice booth inviting people to be interviewed. The whole event had a carnival–like feeling. I think people were happy that there were so many Hong Kong citizens present. People were proud of themselves for making a point of being there.

There were not many elderly people, because it was so hot. Otherwise pretty much all types were there – male and female, young and middle–aged. If you go by how people dress and talk, people of all social classes attended. There were all kinds of folks.

openDemocracy: What was the demonstration really about?

Christine Loh: We need to see it as part of a continuum in a democractic movement. After 155 years as a British colony, Hong Kong has undergone an enormous political transformation since 1997. Most people elsewhere can’t really understand how living in a colony affects you politically. Basically you’re depoliticised, debilitated politically because someone has always taken decisions for you.

The colonial system was designed to prevent people taking a direct interest in politics. The whole system was designed around a core mission built upon an autocracy.

While Hong Kong people enjoyed personal liberties, what was denied was democracy. However, then the British decided to depart with the signing of the Sino–British Joint Declaration (1984), they needed to disengage with “honour”, which had to include a degree of democratisation as part of the agreement with China. So, in 1985, a slow process began leading up to a small number of seats being opened for direct election to the Legislative Council (LegCo) in 1991.

We are now running our own system as a Special Administrative Region within the People’s Republic of China, which is socialist state, shaped by Marxism–Leninism–Maoism. So within this very delicate situation, the question is how Hong Kong people can continue to enjoy the personal liberties we do have and that we treasure so much. And I think over time what Hong Kong people have decided is that democracy is the best way to guarantee the things they care about – like freedom, like the rule of law. That’s point number one.

Point number two is that since 1997 we have had a government that is extremely inexperienced, and it has made quite a lot of blunders. Hong Kong people feel unhappy about that. They felt the political reform timetable and direction doesn’t give us the confidence that we’re going to do very much better in the future. And essentially people feel they won’t have a role in choosing their political leaders.

openDemocracy: So they want to choose political leaders because they feel this will protect quality of life and growth of the economy. Is that what it comes down to?

Christine Loh: Yes, people have come round to thinking that because we have had poor governance for the last seven years. It has made people think about politics a lot, how are policies made, how are leaders chosen, why aren’t our leaders doing better, what can we do about poor leadership.

When you start asking these very basic questions it seems like people have decided it’s probably better that we have a democractic system than what we have right now.

openDemocracy: Why wouldn’t they say let’s go back to the system we had under British rule, if that delivered better governance? It wasn’t democractic but it worked. Why should they think democracy is the way forward ?

Christine Loh: Times have changed. In the 1950s and 1960s many refugees came from China. Hong Kong’s population increased dramatically. If you are a refugee your main concern is to re–establish your life, not to object to the government. You left China to be in British Hong Kong because it had a different system that allowed you to live your life freely. The refugees left China because they had a terrible time there. Don’t forget that the Cultural Revolution started in 1966 and went on until 1977!

My generation are the children of the refugees of the 1950s and 1960s. Our entire identity is Hong Kong. And by the 1980s, when we were 20–somethings, you had the germination of today’s democratic movements. Many people of my generation who are now political leaders were student leaders or worked in non–governmental organisations (NGOs) then and they have been pushing for social change from their youth.

From 1991, when Hong Kong had direct election to LegCo for the first time, at that point Hong Kong’s politics changed forever because there was a legitimate politial route to make your point.

That was 1991. So today we have had more than a dozen years to learn how to think and act politically. So if you look at the timetable it all makes sense that today we want something that is fundamentally different from the colonial system.

openDemocracy: On 1 July last year there was an even bigger demonstration – attended by 10% of people in the region. What has changed between the 1 July 2004 demonstration and last year’s?

Christine Loh: The demonstration on 1 July 2003 was over a particular piece of national security legislation known as Article 23. People felt the situation was very urgent as the bill was scheduled to be passed in a matter of days. More than one in ten people in Hong Kong took part. People felt the bill could affect their freedoms – it prohibited crimes for treason, sedition, secession, subversion and theft of states secrets. People were concerned that the bill as drafted, such as for the crime of subversion, which is unknown in the common law, would take away rights even though it is well known in Chinese law. Hong Kong people also did not like the way their government would not allow more time for consultation.

This year, while there was not an identical sense of urgency, an enormous number of people still came to the 1 July rally. I think they did so because they wanted to do what they could to voice their deep concern about poor governance as well as their desire for democratic reform sooner rather than later. The people were unhappy that the authorities in Hong Kong and Beijing have not heard them.

openDemocracy: To what degree did the demonstration in 2003 contribute to the government backpedalling on the Article 23 bill?

Christine Loh: Because so many people showed up, the government immediately said that it was willing to make a number of key amendments. Then, one of the pro–government political parties actually said that it wanted the government to delay the passage of the legislation, to give people more time to discuss it – because that was what the public wanted. Without the support of that political party the government realised it might actually be unable to pass the legislation. So it decided to withdraw the bill altogether.

openDemocracy: So you have a clear track record here of direct impact: legislators responded to popular pressure.

Christine Loh: Yes, and that is something you would see anywhere in the world where people tell politicians what they want in sufficient numbers.

But this time it’s different from last year. In April 2004 Beijing ruled out universal sufferage in 2007 and 2008.

openDemocracy: So where do things go next? One reads that there’s been some intimidation. It’s one thing to hold a march, but where does the movement go, in your view?

Christine Loh: The people have come forward. They want democracy, they want better politics and a better economy, and they see that these things go together. The government and the politicians cannot ignore this. The next LegCo election is on 12 September. What happened on 1 July will influence the approach to the election. We will see how it will shape the agendas of the candidates of the political parties. Are we going to get many more coming out and supporting universal suffrage sooner rather than later? I think there will be a lot of maneouvres over the next two and half months.

openDemocracy: I read that many people were carrying umbrellas with “universal suffrage” written in English and in Chinese characters. These umbrellas had been made in Shenzen in mainland China, and this made me think – what relevance does this have to people there? Do you think people in China see this as an issue that concerns them? Or do they regard it only as something for Hong Kong people?

Christine Loh: Many products, whether for elections, rallies or whatever, are made across the border. South China is one of the world’s major producer of light industrial and consumer products, after all. In Guangdong, which is the province next to Hong Kong, the people have been able to receive Hong Kong television for many years and the border is quite porous so people there know quite a lot about what happens in Hong Kong.

openDemocracy: So if I’m in Guangdong and watching Hong Kong television and I’m seeing people say in Cantonese we want universal sufferage, we want to choose to political parties, what effect is it going to have on me? Is it relevant to my life in any way?

Christine Loh: I don’t know. I’ve never done any political surveys in China. I don’t think anyone has done any surveys across the border on what people think and I wouldn’t want to speculate.

openDemocracy: When I met you a few weeks ago in Hong Kong we discussed the difference between the East and the West.

Christine Loh: The Chinese world is discovering democracy. It’s not just Hong Kong. Taiwan has had three consecutive peaceful democratic presidential elections. The implications for this development – a first in 5,000 years of Chinese history – are huge.