Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen has acted swiftly to allay fears about Hong Kong's autonomy in the wake of remarks by National People's Congress chairman Wu Bangguo at a conference marking the 10th anniversary of the Basic Law's implementation.
He told reporters on Thursday that the issues of separation of powers and residual powers had been made clear during the drafting process. The courts, he said, had exercised independent judicial powers. Put simply, Mr Tsang was anxious to reassure people that nothing has changed.
Change, however, was in the air when Mr Wu gave his no-nonsense reminder about the nature and limits of Hong Kong's autonomous powers in his speech, which was seen as Beijing's verdict on the 'one country, two systems' arrangement, 10 years on.
'However much power the central government decides to assign to the [special administrative region], this is what the SAR gets ... The question of the so-called 'residual power' does not exist,' he said.
Dismissing the advocacy of separation of powers between the executive, legislative and judiciary branches, Mr Wu emphasised that the Basic Law provided an 'executive-led' system, under which the chief executive plays a dominant role in its structure and operation. He again asked people to have a 'full, accurate' understanding on the 'executive-led' design.
Coming less than a month before the 10th anniversary of the handover, Mr Wu's remarks are hardly just a gentle reminder about the irrelevancy of the notions of separation of powers and residual power.
It is yet another sign of Beijing's change of tack on Hong Kong, following the march on July 1, 2003, by 500,000 people. At that time, their trust in the leadership of Tung Chee-hwa, and society at large, to find a balance in the mainland-Hong Kong relationship was vanishing. A case in point was the ruling by the NPC Standing Committee in 2004 against the introduction of universal suffrage for the election of the chief executive and all of the Legislative Council in 2007 and 2008, respectively.
