Tung Chee-hwa cannot simply pick up a hotline and call President Jiang Zemin to try to resolve the constitutional crisis over Beijing's criticism of the Court of Final Appeal judgment. Nor will he be able to phone Premier Zhu Rongji, any other senior leaders or even the aides in their offices for that matter.
When the Chief Executive tried to do this just before last August's stock-market intervention he failed to get through to any senior leader, according to a recent report in Britain's Independent On Sunday. Instead he had to be content with relaying his message through the much more junior Liao Hui, head of the State Council's Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office (HKMAO).
And that is the body Beijing believes should handle this current crisis, according to yesterday's Foreign Ministry statement, which said the issue was the 'responsibility of the HKMAO'. Contrary to popular belief, Mr Tung does not have a hotline to the senior leadership. Nor does his office even seem to have any direct channel of communication with them. SAR officials say the Chief Executive's contacts with the mainland have to follow the same bureaucratic route as that used by any other Hong Kong civil servant.
This means his messages, even on such urgent matters as the current constitutional crisis, can only be sent via the HKMAO, which acts as the gatekeeper in all mainland-SAR contacts, and is responsible for passing them on to senior mainland leaders. The only special treatment Mr Tung receives, according to those involved in the process, is that his messages are forwarded more speedily.
Until now, this lack of a direct channel did not seem to matter, given the post-handover honeymoon in Beijing-Hong Kong relations. The rigorous application of the HKMAO's gatekeeper role was even seen as helpful, as it guarded against interference in the SAR's autonomy by cadres elsewhere in China.
All but forgotten were the pre-handover suggestions that the Chief Executive needed some position of authority in the mainland hierarchy, perhaps as a vice-chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, if Hong Kong was to stand any chance of making its voice heard in Beijing in the event of a crisis.
