Vote winner

When Deng Xiaoping invented the 'one country, two systems' formula, he did not have Hong Kong in mind. In fact, he wanted to use the system as an enticement for Taiwan to 'return to the motherland'.

Many Hong Kong people do not know this, but it was only after former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher first visited China to renegotiate Hong Kong's 100-year lease on the Kowloon peninsula and the New Territories, in 1982, that Deng decided to use the concept to entice her to return the territories.

He intended Hong Kong's return to be a model for Taiwan's eventual return, which he wisely knew would be a much trickier matter. Deng died in 1997, just a few months before the handover, but if he were alive, he might not be very happy with the state of affairs in Hong Kong, or with the Tung administration's mishandling of the Article 23 issue.

Of course, the central government wanted Article 23 legislation, but it was up to the Tung administration to sell it to the people. Instead of selling it, the administration tried to ram it down people's throats. Now it has become a debacle that is making a mockery of 'one country, two systems'.

Instead of winning the confidence of the Taiwanese people and bringing Taiwan back to the fold, the Tung administration's management of Hong Kong is lending even more credibility to the Taiwan independence movement and the support base of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

The march of 500,000 people in Hong Kong on July 1, the fifth anniversary of Hong Kong's return to China, has provided President Chen Shui-bian and the DPP with plenty of ammunition going into next year's presidential elections.