Losing hope of reform … and fearing for the future: Brian Fong
Dr Brian Fong tried to plot a moderate course to a democratic 2017 poll, but fears Beijing will be intransigent … with worrying consequences
Mahatma Gandhi once said: "All compromise is based on give and take, but there can be no give and take on fundamentals. Any compromise on mere fundamentals is a surrender."
Dr Brian Fong Chi-hang cited the quote in an article published on Friday, the day he travelled to Shenzhen to attend a seminar with Beijing officials to discuss electoral reform and the path to universal suffrage at the 2017 chief executive election.
For Fong, the "mere fundamental" is this: a candidate must be allowed to run in the election if he or she wins support from one-eighth of the members of the nominating committee. The threshold would be the same as in the 2012 election, when support from one-eighth of election committee members allowed Democrat Albert Ho Chun-yan to join Henry Tang Ying-yen and winner Leung Chun-ying, in a three-horse race decided by the 1,200-strong committee.
His comments come amid suggestions from local deputies that the National People's Congress Standing Committee will set the threshold at 50 per cent of committee members when it sets a framework for reform at its meeting this week. If a 50 per cent threshold is announced when the meeting ends on Sunday, Fong believes it could be the last straw, fuelling mass protests and even separatist sentiments.
The Institute of Education academic warned in his article that a 50 per cent threshold implied Beijing's "insistence on an electoral system that would definitely screen out pan-democrats and could be fully manipulated". Pan-democrats should be "prepared to veto" such a reform package - as they could do when it reaches the Legislative Council.
It was a strong statement from the social studies lecturer, who has attempted to steer a moderate course and find a way of reconciling the pan-democrats' demand that the public be allowed to nominate candidates and the insistence of Beijing and its allies on a nominating committee.
In an interview with the Post earlier this month, Fong warned that the wrong type of political reform could fuel pro-independence sentiment by destroying the aspirations of Hongkongers.