The policy of 'one country, two systems' requires the Communist Party 'to contradict its very nature', according to Oxford University scholar Steve Tsang in his latest book, A Modern History of Hong Kong, published by Hong Kong University Press. This is because the party, organised along Leninist lines, 'is interventionist in its ethos'.
This book, read especially at this juncture in Hong Kong's history, helps one understand what is going on today. For example, 10 years ago, both the Chinese Foreign Ministry and the director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, Lu Ping, assured Hong Kong people that, by 2007, they alone - not the central government - would decide how the legislature would be elected. This is the opposite of what Beijing is saying today.
This may be an example of united-front tactics at work. These tactics, Tsang explains, 'require one to isolate one's principal antagonist and destroy it by rallying one's supporters, winning over those wavering and neutralising the opponent's natural supporters. Once this is completed, one moves on to the next target and repeats the exercise until one establishes full control'.
'In the winter of 1992-3, the Chinese saw [former governor Chris] Patten as the principal target,' Tsang says. 'The people of Hong Kong were the wavering elements, and the British government and Hong Kong civil service were the opponent's natural supporters.' At the time, it was necessary to isolate the governor and unite the people of Hong Kong against him. Presumably, therefore, it was right to make promises to win over these people.
Now, clearly, the communists have identified another principal target - presumably leaders of the democratic camp - and are moving to isolate this target while rallying wavering elements. Only history will tell whether this effort is successful.
In his book, Tsang demonstrates that the Chinese community of Hong Kong traditionally shared the sense of Chinese nationalism, which rose rapidly as a key political force on the mainland throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Whenever external events provoked major outbursts of nationalism in China, he wrote, Hong Kong's Chinese community would respond in a similar fashion. There was little sense of Britishness.