麥理浩功過

..Anna Wu (胡紅玉), a lawyer who in 1975 helped found the Hong Kong Observers, a pressure group dedicated to discussing contemporary issue, and who was appointed by Patten to the Legislative Council in 1992, argues that Murray MacLehose's refusal to introduce elections to the Legislative Council during his tenure (任期) as "disastrous" for Hong Kong. Such reforms would have given Hong Kong a "much more stable and more mature alternative" to colonial rule and would have prepared Hong Kong much better for the post-1997 HKSAR government. Politics, Wu maintains, would have "been part of our lives and culture, not a new concept." By not introducing democracy until the 1990s, the colonial government actually legitimized (合理化) the PRC government's opposition to political changes. Thus, it is not only Beijing that is to blame for the HKSAR's problems.

Rather, argues Ming Chan, "the inadequate foundation, unhealthy political culture, flawed legal-administrative framework and questionable bureaucratic practices inherited from the British --- together with the inability of the Hong Kong people to stand firmly to defend their much cherished freedom, democracy and high degree of autonomy because of their colonial deprivation --- ought to be blamed as well."

The end of British rule did not give Hong Kong a fresh start. On the contrary, Beijing is committed to keeping Hong Kong's political structure in the form it had assumed by the last years of the colonial era, especially the functional constituency (功能界別) model for the new Legislative Council because legislators from these constituencies consistently vote against any measures to promote democratic reforms, civil liberties, or political accountability.

Carroll, J.M. (2007). A Concise History of Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.