Hong Kong’s Executive–Legislative Gridlock: Filibuster, Fragmented Politics and Chinese Influence after 2016

Abstract

The People’s Republic of China resumed sovereignty of Hong Kong in 1997 with the principle of “one country, two systems” and the establishment of a special administrative region. Although the constitutional document Basic Law stipulates that the ultimate goal of political development shall be universal suffrage for selecting the Chief Executive and the members of the Legislative Council, the city has not been fully democratized over 20 years after the handover. In recent years, revealed by more council struggle activities, the executive-legislative relationship obviously becomes more uncooperative than before. The aim of this research is to explain the declining efficiency of governmental structures in Hong Kong under the post-1997 circumstance and to investigate the causes and the consequences of a worsening executivelegislative relationship and the council struggle activities. This research will first examine the strategies employed by the oppositional legislators to delay the governmental policies and the related consequences over council affairs. To understand the reasons behind council struggles, the uniqueness of current institutional settings, such as the constitutional arrangements for the Executive Council as well as the Legislative Council and their electoral methods, will be deeply analyzed. This research will then examine why different political groups became fragmented under such an institutional circumstance and how these various forces interacted in the legislative process. With the development of fragmented politics, there was more room provided for radical legislators and the gradual acceptance of council struggles against the administration. Furthermore, although Hong Kong is implementing the principles of “one country, two systems” and “high degree of autonomy”, the Chinese authorities had tightened the control over Hong Kong due to the rise of localist ideologies. In 2019, the largest scale of riots in the history of Hong Kong finally brought about the greater Chinese intervention into the local affairs. The research will finally discuss the consequences of the worsening executive-legislative relationship and how the declining local authority caused the growing influence and pressure from the Chinese authorities. Through examining the above perspectives, this research will provide much more in-depth insights on the semi-authoritarian system and the current political gridlock in Hong Kong than what is available in existing literature. It argues that even though Hong Kong maintained the authoritarian features after the handover, (1) the Basic Law’s institutional settings, (2) the Chinese path-dependent attitudes towards the pro-democracy and pro-Beijing parties, and (3) the strategies on suppressing the localist ideologies worsened the seriousness of council struggles in Hong Kong. The Beijing’s past semi-authoritarian polices towards Hong Kong failed to achieve its political expectations.