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Note: This article represents the view of the author and not the University of Hong Kong.

While July 1 is approaching, some people are again speculating on the turnout of the Rally. At around the same time last year, the author pointed out that July 1 Rally and June 4 Candlelight Vigil had become important parts of the political culture of our civil society, while head count alone belonged to another level. It would be a mistake to over emphasize the turnout at the expense of studying the nature of the activity itself.

Undoubtedly, the July 1 Rally in 2003 is exactly a demonstration of people's power, which has also directly shaken the governance of Tung's administration and changed people's views on mass movement. It can be expected that, every year on 4 June and 1 July, no matter how effective the governance of the Central Government and the HKSAR Government are, and how peaceful the atmosphere of the society is, provided that the organizer of the movement does not deviate too much from the demands of the public, several ten thousands of people will voluntarily show up every year.

In the author's view, even though there is a reversion of the official stand on the June Fourth Incident, people will keep on gathering each year for a period of time to commemorate the June Fourth students' movement. Although CH Tung has stepped down, the public will not forget the people's power easily and will gather on 1 July to voice out their demands.

As a matter of fact, according to the opinion surveys conducted by the author concerning the July 1 Rally, Hong Kong people's propensity to participate in the July 1 Rally was declining over the last 2 years (Table 1). Looking at the surveys conducted in late June over the 2 years, no matter using the proportions of "definitely will" or "definitely will + most likely will" as indicators, this year's figures were only around one-third of last year's, and a continuing downward trend can also be seen. Therefore, it can be expected that, the turnout of this year's July 1 Rally will experience a drastic drop when comparing to last year's, and become close to that of the June 4 Candlelight Vigil.

In this way, a specific kind of form and culture may be formed from the July 1 Rally to become a collective symbol demonstrating the freedom and diversity of the society, just like the June 4 Candlelight Vigil. If the Central Government and the HKSAR Government treat those symbols with resistance and fear, this will distort public opinions and lead to failure of the governance. On the other hand, if both the government and the civil society can treasure the core values behind the activities and harmonize them with people's nationalistic feelings, it is not impossible to see national flag and regional emblem, as well as celebration of the handover, in the July 1 Rally altogether.

According to the surveys conducted by the author, although not too many respondents have taken part in the two July 1 rallies, their propensity to take part in this year's rally was over 40%, including nearly 20% who said they "definitely will" participate (Table 2). Judging from the proportion of opinion figures, this active group amounts to around 80,000 people, and nearly 40,000 of them can be regarded as the backbone force of the July 1 Rally. While 40,000 is not a small number, this group of people has clear and persistent objectives. How the culture of July 1 Rally will be evolving hinges very much on these people.

Figures also show that, those who have never participated in the July 1 Rally had almost no intention to take part in this year's Rally. Those who have taken part in the first rally and have no longer participated last year basically had little interest to participate again as well. On the other hand, those few people who only started to participate last year had stronger interest in this year's Rally. This shows that, similar to the June Fourth Candlelight Vigil, the core group of participants of the July 1 Rally has gradually formed. If one wants to study the development of the July 1 political culture, he should start with the background and demands of these people.

Table 1: Comparison of propensity to participate in rallies before July 1 over the last 2 years

* Due to the round-off problems, the sum of the "definitely will" and "most likely will" columns may not exactly be the percentages found in the "definitely will + most likely will" column. Figures are obtained from the independent sampling surveys conducted by the HKU POP Team. There were two surveys in 2005, with respective sample sizes of 1,026 and 1,029 cases and response rates of 61.9% and 66.0%. The contact information of the 2004 survey was released last year.

Table 2: Relations between participating in July 1 Rally and experiences in rallies

* Figures are obtained from the two independent sampling surveys conducted by the HKU POP Team as shown in Table 1. The combined sample size was 2,055 cases with an average response rate of 64.0%.