The Civic Party voted on Saturday to disband after it had failed to produce new leadership since the end of last year. Announcing its dissolution, the party chairman, Alan Leong Kah-kit, noted that the party had failed to elect a new chairman and executive committee members, on top of its inability to raise funds for sustaining its operation. 

Ever since the Civic Party joined hands with the radical party League of Social Democrats to trigger the so-called “de facto referendum” in 2010 by having five Legislative Council members from five geographical constituencies resign en masse, it had become increasingly radical. It repeatedly challenged the “one country, two systems” principle and the central government’s jurisdiction over the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region before the implementation of the National Security Law for Hong Kong. It was just a matter of time before it met its ill fate. 

The disbandment of the Civic Party offers us some lessons about what principles Hong Kong should uphold in exploring a path for democratic development in the city. 

The gravest mistake the Civic Party committed was to challenge the “one country” red line. The party had campaigned for universal suffrage and promoted the ideas of protecting freedom of access to information via legislation, party politics, minimum wages, standard working hours, etc. 

Article 45 of the Basic Law stipulates that “the method for selecting the chief executive shall be specified in the light of the actual situation in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and in accordance with the principle of gradual and orderly progress”. Article 68 specifies the same condition for the method for forming the Legislative Council, with the ultimate aim of electing all LegCo members via universal suffrage. 

While the Civic Party’s stance on universal suffrage appeared to be in line with the stipulation of the Basic Law, it ignored the fundamental principle that universal suffrage shall proceed “in the light of the actual situation in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and in accordance with the principle of gradual and orderly progress”. It challenged the “one country” principle when its radical agenda for universal suffrage failed to bear fruit. 

In the 2016 Legislative Council Election, the Civic Party rolled out an election manifesto promoting the ideas of “self-determination”, “self-government” and Hong Kong residents “deciding the city’s future via a democratic process”. All these are, in essence, separatist advocacy in disguise. 

China’s Constitution and the Basic Law of the HKSAR spell out the city’s constitutional status as a special administrative region of China, directly under the Central People’s Government. This is the red line that must not be stepped on in the implementation of “one country, two systems”.

Ironically, the Civic Party, which was chiefly composed of legal professionals, had no sense of legalities and constitutionality with regard to the governance of the HKSAR. It failed to realize, or simply ignored, the plain fact that any attempt to change Hong Kong’s constitutional status via “self-determination” is futile. Such a delusional scenario could never happen. 

The second-biggest blunder made by the Civic Party was to collude with foreign forces in its attempts to force Beijing and the HKSAR government’s hand. On their trip to the US in August 2019, Civic Party legislators Alvin Yeung Ngok-kiu and Dennis Kwok Wing-hang openly called for the revocation of Hong Kong’s special trade status. A month later, Yeung and Kwok, together with three of their peer legislators, Kwok Ka-ki, Jeremy Tam Man-ho and Tanya Chan Suk-chong, signed a letter urging US lawmakers to enact the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act and impose sanctions on Chinese officials. The US Congress subsequently passed a bill imposing sanctions on some mainland and HKSAR officials. In disgracing itself as traitors of the HKSAR and the country, key members of the Civic Party colluded with Washington to subdue China.

Such traitorous behavior revealed their covert disapproval of the “one country” principle. If they did not consider themselves citizens of “one country”, i.e., China, any political aspiration they pursued under “one country, two systems” was simply a lost cause. 

Promoting violence was the third-biggest mistake of the Civic Party. Speaking at a public forum at the University of Hong Kong in July 2019, Alan Leong had the gall to assert that “violence may sometimes be the solution to a problem”. Alvin Yeung, once the party head, also openly raved about how criminal records could make young people’s lives “more colorful”, saying they were something they should be “proud of”. 

In no way should a civilized and law-based society tolerate violence in the name of democracy. The legal profession is supposedly the guardian of the rule of law; it thus was appalling and outrageous that leaders of the Civic Party openly advocated violence. 

The demise of the Civic Party has again shed light on the right path for democratic development in Hong Kong: Two key conditions must be met. First, the red line of “one country” must not be crossed. As Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China, there is no room for “self-determination” or collusion with foreign entities to advance a separatist agenda. Hong Kong’s issues are China’s internal affairs and are not for any foreign country to intervene in. Any attempt by Hong Kong political entities to beg for foreign sanctions to pressure China is impermissible and futile. Demand for democratic reforms must be expressed in a peaceful, rational and nonviolent manner, and in doing so, no one should instigate violence. 

Second, Hong Kong-style democracy should conform to the city’s actualities, of which the most relevant one is “one country, two systems”. This governs that Hong Kong can copy verbatim neither the democratic models of the West nor the Chinese mainland. Instead, the city should take the strengths of the two models and come up with one befitting its own societal conditions.

Democratic development must progress within the framework of “one country, two systems” as set up in the Basic Law. Any radical maneuver in violation of the fundamental principle of “one country, two systems” is doomed.

The author is vice-chairman of the Committee on Liaison with Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and Overseas Chinese of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, and chairman of the Hong Kong New Era Development Thinktank.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.