BEIJING – They are businessmen, born in mainland China, and serve on top advisory committees in Beijing, professing patriotism for the motherland. One recently traveled to an obscure village in southeast China to study Xi Jinping’s doctrine to lead the country to greatness.
Now they are trying to bring that zeal to Hong Kong as the founders of the city’s newest political party. They call for social stability to unite a deeply broken society and repair a damaged economy.
“You can not protest every day,” said Li Shan, the party’s founder and chairman.
The arrival of the Bauhinia party sparked furious speculation about the future of Hong Kong’s once-lively, sometimes unruly, political scene. The party, led by businessmen who have moved from the mainland to Hong Kong, is entering the battle amid vigorous steps by the Chinese government to end disunity, after major protests against democracy in 2019 challenged its rule.
Authorities have already expelled opposition lawmakers from the Hong Kong legislature and disqualified and arrested candidates. Many in the pro-democracy camp see the new party as another sign that Hong Kong – a former British colony that promised 50 years of semi-autonomy when it returned to China in 1997 – is becoming just another continental city.
But the news was equally, if not more, disturbing for Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing bloc, the coalition of local businessmen, established politicians and unions that have long been able to govern as the central government’s proxy. Many have wondered if the rise of the new party is the sign from Beijing that it has used less for the traditional power brokers and can replace it with figures that are considered more effective or reliable.
While the pro-Beijing camp has always had loyalty to the central government, its members have made sure to emphasize the differences between their city and the mainland.
The Bauhinia party seems to be presenting itself in Beijing as a new model for allies, those who are more open about their ties with the central government and their admiration for its top-down approach.
Mr. Li is a delegate to the National Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, an advisory body to Beijing, and speaks almost no Cantonese, Hong Kong’s local language. Another co-founder, Chen Jianwen, is a delegate to a regional arm of the advisory body and leads an alumni association of a training academy for Communist Party officials.
The central planks of the party’s platform include combating discrimination from transplants to mainland to Hong Kong and fostering a love of Chinese language and culture. Li said he wanted to encourage more Hong Kong students to study at the mainland universities and undergo ‘patriotic training’, a version of Mr. Xi’s own calls on young Hong Kongers to “increase their sense of participation in the motherland.”
Even the way Mr. Li founded the party, nodding to the central government. He officially founded it aboard a cruise ship in Victoria Harbor in Hong Kong, a reference to Mao Zedong’s founding of the Chinese Communist Party aboard a boat in eastern China, according to the party narrative.
Observed loyalty to Beijing could be the most important factor in securing the central authorities’ blessing in the years to come, said Willy Lam, a professor of Chinese politics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
If more people with the continent’s backgrounds were to take part in Hong Kong politics, Beijing could ‘rest assured’ that the city would be led by those who ‘would presumably be more loyal to the motherland’, he added.
The founders of the Bauhinia Party deny that they are puppets from Beijing or that they want to oust existing parties. Li said the party was focused on electing the city’s chief executive, not on obtaining legislative seats.
The CEO is elected by a committee of just 1,200 voters, many of whom have close ties to Beijing.
While Mr. Li said he did not intend to run for executive next year, repeatedly hinting that he would one day be interested in the post.
“If the community demands that I commit myself to such a job or responsibility, I am willing to sacrifice myself,” he said in an interview in Beijing last month.
Li said he had not told the central government or the Hong Kong government that he would start a party before doing so. He then notified Hong Kong’s CEO Carrie Lam and the Central Liaison Office, Beijing’s official arm in Hong Kong.
He was frustrated with suggestions that he was an outsider. “I was a permanent resident for 20 years,” he said. Li, a financier who moved to Hong Kong in 1993, said after completing a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The co-founders say they want to reach opponents of the government as well as supporters.
In its stated principles, the party professes a commitment to universal suffrage – a central demand of the pro-democracy camp – and a promise to make Hong Kong ‘one of the world’s most free, democratic and open’ cities. Mr. Li said he wanted to preserve the structure of “one country, two systems” for another 50 years.
But the pro-democracy camp dismissed these openings as lip service. An editorial in Apple Daily, an ardent pro-democracy newspaper, calls the party a ‘Trojan horse’ that will enable the Communist Party to function openly in Hong Kong. Lo Kin-hei, the chairman of the Democratic Party, posted on Twitter that it was the “Hong Kong branch” of the Communist Party.
The camp in Beijing was equally hostile. Many people scoffed at the stated goal of the Bauhinia party to attract 250,000 members, about five times more than the largest pro-Beijing party in Hong Kong had. Li said Friday the party has had fewer than 100 members so far.
“It’s easy to start a party, but it’s not that easy to establish your party as a viable political force,” said Jasper Tsang, the founder of the largest party, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress. or Hong Kong, said.
Mr. Tsang rejects the idea that the Bauhinia party has Beijing’s support or that Mr. Li can become CEO. He pointed out that Hong Kong’s two major state – sponsored newspapers paid little attention to the new party, which he said suggested a lack of official support.
Regina Ip, the founder of another pro-Beijing party, said Mr. Li approached her about possible collaboration and that she was ‘not interested at all’.
“I do not think he’s starting to understand how complicated the job is,” she said of Li’s tips on the fact that he was elected CEO. “Having financial referees does not mean you are qualified.”
Mr. Li admitted that he was not powerful in Hong Kong politics, despite his long stay in the city. He said he never voted until late 2019. Asked about his position on a controversial proposal to get Hong Kong residents living on mainland China to vote in the city’s election, he said he had not heard of the matter.
Some are more susceptible to the Bauhinia Party.
Christine Loh, a former pro-democracy lawmaker who also worked in the administration of a pro-Beijing chief executive, said she did not know much about the new party. But she said Hong Kongers should be more open to political figures who are more in line with the mainland system.
“It’s not that it’s going to expand to Hong Kong, but it’s not completely connected,” she said of the mainland system. It is possible, she said, that people with ties to it could help Hong Kong.
While Mr. Li insisting that he did not consult any Chinese officials before founding his party, he admitted that he has since discussed some of the proposals with officials.
Last month, he visited a museum in Xiadang, a village where Mr. Xi worked as a young cadre of the Communist Party in the 1980s. Li said he wanted to learn more about the early development of ‘Xi Jinping Thought’, Mr. Xi’s ideological manifesto.
Another co-founder, Wong Chau-chi, testified in an interview with The South China Morning Post when asked if members of the Bauhinia party were secretly Communist Party members.
“It is not correct to judge our party whether we have underground members or not,” he said. “This is something that is not relevant to our management.”