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Note: This article represents the view of the authors and not their respective universities.

Hong Kong Government under the British rule has gradually evolved from the political absorption of local elites in its early period, to conducting massive public consultations in the 1980s. This shows that as the handover of sovereignty approached, political authority was gradually devolved. As Hong Kong people became more civilized, their political aspirations and requests kept rising as well. Later on, when elections finally came, the media and opinion polls bloomed, and people's expectation on the government consultations grew. The SAR Government's consultation exercise on the implementation of Article 23 of the Basic Law has come under fire, because it has failed to progress with time. Formed by the two authors and a number of fellow academics, the "Research Team on the Compendium of Submissions on Article 23 of the Basic Law" sought to redress for the public opinion expressed in the exercise, and to prevent similar mishaps from happening again.

Consultation on Article 23 Highly Problematic

While publishing the consultation paper to gauge public opinion, the Government was also "hard-selling" its own stand. At the end of the day, the Government concluded that the majority of people supported the legislation, which was completely the opposite of our independent research finding. The Government has committed three major mistakes: 1) It failed to provide alternatives for the public to choose from; 2) It violated the principle of impartiality; 3) It did not explain its study method.

Because the consultation paper did not provide alternatives on the key issues, public discussions lost focus. Emotional and over-simplified assertions generated confrontation. Only about 10% of the submissions made specific reference to proposals spelled out in the consultation paper. Moreover, when the Government collated the submissions, it only focused on the direction of support, and neglected concrete suggestions and concerns expressed.

At the beginning of the consultation exercise, no explanation was offered on how the submissions would be handled, thereby giving too much room for the Government to interpret the public opinion. Besides, the public was not informed of the Government's criteria in classifying submissions into supporting and opposing categories (say, whether it was based on people's attitude towards the legislation "in principle", or their attitude towards the concrete "proposals" in the consultation paper). Moreover, the general public was also unaware that submissions in different formats (like signature forms and pre-printed standard letters) would be handled differently. The general public could not help but cast doubt on the Government's sincerity in conducting the consultation. Worse still, the Government could be guilty of manipulating public opinion.

The Government has never openly explained the methodology adopted for analyzing the submissions. No coding system was found in the compendium of submissions, nor any explanation regarding the quality control measures for ensuring the reliability of the analysis. All in all, the consultation method and attitude of the Government were the main reasons why the opinion collected was rather sketchy and polarized.

The 1988 Direct Election, a Notorious Precedent

As a matter of fact, it is not the first time for the Government to manipulate public opinion. In May 1987, in order to prepare for Hong Kong's 10-year transition, the British Hong Kong Government published the "Green Paper: The 1987 Review of Developments in Representative Government", in which several proposals regarding constitutional reforms were presented, including having direct elections of Legislative Councilors in 1988, or the so-called "1998 Direct Election Proposal".

To show the importance of the consultation exercise, the Government made an unprecedented move to set up a "Survey Office" for the collection and organization of public opinion, and a commercial market research firm was commissioned to conduct public opinion surveys. A total of 131,589 submissions were received, as well as many opinion surveys and petitions. Alas, the general public was deeply shocked by the analysis of the submissions which followed.

To put it simple, the "Survey Office" classified the opinions into three categories, namely, submissions from organizations and individuals, opinion surveys, and petitions. Introducing direct elections to the Legislative Council in 1988 was then concluded as inappropriate, because it was alleged that a vast majority of the public was against such an idea. The British Hong Kong administration claimed that the opposition view was dominant among submissions under the first two categories, while the 21 petitions, involving 23,866 supporters and 295 opponents, were said to be of very little value because they were products of mobilization. Public opinion surveys were regarded as more reliable, but the problem is, the "Survey Office" had commissioned AGB McNair to conduct two opinion polls regarding the 1988 direct election with a leading questionnaire, which thereby produced findings totally different from those conducted by community groups. The government surveys allegedly found that people did not have a clear preference, but all non-government polls at that time found that people supported having direct elections in 1988.

More appallingly, it turned out that the "Survey Office" had grouped the 73,767 pre-printed standard letters with more or less identical opinion under the category of submissions from organizations and individuals. Considering that most of these standard letters were opposed to direct elections in 1988, the supporting voice within the same category was eventually overshadowed.

In other words, had the Government given equal weight to the standard letters and signature forms by classifying them impartially under the third category, category one and three would then become dominated by submissions in support of direct elections. Moreover, had the government opinion polls been conducted according to professional standards which existed at that time, submissions under category two would also be in favour of the direct elections. In other words, in terms of broad categories, a 3-0 absolute victory for direct election advocates turned out to be a 1-2 marginal defeat, due to the "book-cooking" tricks played by the Government along the way.

Suggestions for Future Consultations

As seen from the two examples discussed above, both the British Hong Kong Government and the post-handover SAR Government recognized the importance of public support in policy implementation, both were determined to control and manipulate it using every means possible. Our research team has spent tremendous effort in re-analyzing the public submissions, in the hope of redressing the public voice, while calling for the Government to be fair and professional when conducting consultation exercises in future.

Should the Government only want simple positive or negative answers, it can commission an independent body to conduct some opinion surveys, or hold a referendum under the law. If the Government wishes to gather opinions which could not be obtained from ordinary telephone surveys, it could invite public submissions. Via these submissions, the Government could identify and analyze opinions which are strong, organized or mobilized. This could help it understand the rationale behind different stands, people's concerns, and specific suggestions. To achieve these goals, the Government should consider these three suggestions:

1.

Options should be provided on the core issues for public discussions;

2.

Public opinion should be handled with impartiality, and the methodology for collating opinion collected before and after the consultation exercise should be clearly explained;

3.

An independent organization should be commissioned to collect and analyze public opinion.

We wish to let people know that unless our Government would consult us sincerely, openly and fairly, public submissions could easily become a convenient tool to manipulate public opinion. We believe that consultations conducted by the Government in the past were rather sketchy and biased, and all of us should be deeply concerned.