Lam says commentators have questioned the second and fourth of these goals. After all, particularly after the expected establishment of the SAR representative office in Beijing in mid-1998, there will be no need for Xinhua to play the role of intermediary between Hong Kong and mainland departments. Jiang Enzhu's new stance, however, has received support from Beijing for two reasons. Maoists and other hard-liners in the zhongyang back Xinhua's "interventionist" proclivities. Even moderates among Beijing's Hong Kong establishment think Xinhua is needed to provide support to the HKPA and other patriotic forces.
However, one result, according to a local commentator, is that 'the Hong Long-left-wing establishment, and left-wing parties revolve around Xinhua rather than the SAR government'. Xinhua officials played a big role in the election of the 36 Hong Kong-based members of the NPC. Against widespread opposition, Jiang Enzhu himself ran for a NPC seat, and his aides made sure that he got the highest number of votes in the balloting. The price that Xinhua pays for its high-profile performance is that it will be even more difficult for left-wing political elements to be accepted by and assimilated into mainstream Hong Kong society.
Some 18 months after the transition, most Hong Kong residents seem to have taken a fatalistic attitude towards the zhuada fangxiao policy. Opinion polls have consistently shown that the majority is much more concerned about economic well-being than about a boost in popular representation. Indeed, given the depth of the economic downturn beginning in October 1997, many are hoping that there will be closer mainland-SAR lnks, at least in the economic area, so that Hong Kong can benefit from more mainland investments, Lam said.
From the broader perspective, however, there are worries about threats to the long-term viability of tale 'one country, two systems' formula. First, there is no guarantee how long-Beijing's zhuada fangxiao policy will last. Moreover, there are signs that the policy of qualified non-intervention notwithstanding, qualitative changes are taking place on a daily basis in the body politic. There is evidence of a gradual but relentless Sinicization of Hong Kong political life.
Tung was the first politician to stress that more emphasis should be put on the 'one country' part of the 'one country, two systems' formula. An inevitable corollary of this is infiltration of the mainland political culture - or what SAR residents euphemistically call the "mainland way of doing things"--which could be summed up by what the ADPL chairman Frederick Fung Kin-Kee called "the culture of clapping hands." In the last years of British rule, Hong Kong had experienced elements of "Western-style" democracy such as elections, party politics, and decision-making via the cut-and-thrust of public debate. Tung's critics have charged that he has introduced a kind of decision-making via Chinese-style consultation: major decisions are made behind closed doors, and public views are only sought as a means to project social cohesiveness and to orchestrate support for the powers-that-be.
