As the government climbed down further from its intransigent position on the National Security Bill last week, the political message was clear: Public officials in Hong Kong may ignore public concern at their peril. People power, at least temporarily, seems to have triumphed.
Did this political message contain a deeper constitutional message, and did the government understand it? The answers appear to be yes and no, in that order.
The constitutional message appears to be that a government in an economically developed community with liberal and democratic commitments should also be liberal and democratic. A halfway house of authoritarianism and liberal democracy tends to produce, successively, political arrogance and political half-measures. The Article 23 debate became the public face of this, and a lightning rod for public disgust over Hong Kong's long-established political difficulties.
Of course, in the Article 23 debate, the political arrogance came first. The tight deadline and the aggressive way the former secretary for security pushed the bill forward at the start came to symbolise in the public eye the worst symptoms of this political culture. The response of the pro-government camp in Legco, in tightly constraining hearings and testimony, and overriding democratic objections, created a bad public impression.
In the Article 23 debate, this political arrogance was followed by political half-measures. At every juncture where clearly valid criticisms were expressed by critics, including most prominently the Bar Association and the Article 23 Concern Group, government concessions were always the minimum necessary to deflect the most telling points of its critics. This was evident even after a half-million people marched, when the government split hairs, announcing three concessions but proclaiming that it would still push the legislation through on time.
This attitude was again on display last week when the government withdrew the bill but still made no firm indication of moderation in the next draft. It seems from the comments of the chief executive and the secretary for security that the existing bill, with its amendments, could still be tabled again. The dismissive attitude evident in the government's stance was also apparent in its response to the July 1 demonstration.
The government's withdrawing the legislation to focus on the economy, while wise, makes one worry that the government expects less resistance if the economy is better after the next Legco elections.
