Shadow legislature will sow confusion

LAST Friday, I submitted to the clerk of the Legislative Council a motion on shadow government which I hope will be debated in the not-too-distant future.

My move was prompted by a recent speech by Sir Sze-yuen Chung, a member of the Preliminary Working Committee (PWC), in which he forecast the Chinese Government would set up a shadow Special Administrative Region (SAR) government and shadow legislature in Hong Kong next year. He also proposed to set up a provisional SAR government secretariat with several hundred staff.

Sir Sze-yuen's remarks caused further uproar in a community which had barely recovered from the turmoil caused by the PWC legal sub-group's recommendations to water down the Bill of Rights Ordinance.

Sir Sze-yuen gave his speech at the annual fellowship dinner of the Hong Kong Management Association, an organisation headed by fellow PWC member David Li. According to some people who attended the dinner, Sir Sze-yuen's authoritative delivery conjured up the image of a mandarin reading out the emperor's edict.

Sir Sze-yuen admitted that to have two legislatures at work in parallel is unprecedented. He said it is essential the provisional SAR government and the British Hong Kong Government should explain this unusual situation to the people in order to avoid misunderstanding.

If China were to set up two alternative centres of power in Hong Kong next year, it would cause a lot more than just 'misunderstanding'. Such a move would lead to unease, apprehension and even chaos. It does not require much imagination to see that Sir Sze-yuen's recommendation is a recipe for disaster and could make the colony ungovernable.

Next week the Labour Party's Shadow Foreign Secretary Robin Cook will visit Hong Kong. Since opinion polls in Britain predict that Labour will probably win the next general election which must be held before July 1997, Mr Cook may want to find out more about Hong Kong's mounting problems.