The 1988 Hong Kong electoral reform was carried out by the colonial government during 1987 to 1988 as the second stage of the developments of the representative government. Direct elections to the Legislative Council became the most debated issue during the public consultations. Under the strong opposition from the Government of the People's Republic of China, the Hong Kong government consequently turned down the option of the 1988 direct elections and introduced a little change in the government system.
Background
The reform consultations followed the 1985 electoral reform which introduced the first ever indirect elections to the Legislative Council of Hong Kong in the 1985 Legislative Council Election. In the White Paper: the Further Development of Representative Government in Hong Kong, the idea of direct election was suggested to be reviewed in the development of representative government in 1987.
In May 1987, the government published the 1987 Green Paper: Review of Developments in Representative Government to consider the next stage of development of representative government, which could take account into the terms of the Sino-British Joint Declaration signed in December 1984 which the United Kingdom and People's Republic of China governments agreed upon the handover of Hong Kong to the PRC in 1997.
Green Paper
The 1987 Green Paper: Review of Developments in Representative Government provided a general review on the development of the representative government system at district, regional and central levels, assessment of the developments since the publication of the 1984 White Paper and the public response to them, and consideration of the options for further development in 1988.
The Green Paper listed the following as options of introducing a representative government for public consultation: changing the composition, functions and elections of the District Boards, and the municipal councils (Urban Council and Regional Council) and Legislative Council; considering whether the Governor should continue to be the President of the Legislative Council; and introducing direct elections to the Legislative Council in 1988.
Public consultation
The period of public consultation started from 27 May, the day the Green Paper was published, until 30 September 1987.
Pro-Beijing opinions
The PRC authorities strongly opposed the idea of direction elections to the Legislative Council. On 18 June 1987, the news department of the New China News Agency Hong Kong branch distributed a summary of an interview with Li Hou, deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council of the People's Republic of China and the secretary general of the Basic Law Drafting Committee. In the interview Li Hou claimed that Hong Kong direct elections in 1988 fail to "converge" with the Hong Kong Basic Law which was being drafted at that time and were contrary to the "spirit" of the Sino-British Joint Declaration. Li said direct elections in 1988 would only sharpen the contradictions among different classes and segments of Hong Kong society, which would lead to political, economic, and social instability and would be harmful to a smooth transfer of sovereignty in 1997. However, after a private meeting between Hong Kong Governor David Wilson and PRC Foreign Minister Wu Xueqian on 20 June 1987, Li clarified that he never said the 1988 direct elections did not conform the spirit of Sino-British Joint Declaration.
During the summer and fall of 1989, the local pro-Beijing organs and figures such as the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce joined forces with conservative business elites to actively oppose the introduction of direct election, which they argued would only undermine Hong Kong's stability and prosperity. Some unionists from the leftist Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions (FTU) even coined the slogan that "Hong Kong workers only want their meal tickets but not ballot tickets." It was also reported that the Bank of China arranged for its employees to watch a video narrated by Ma Lik, who was the then deputy secretary general of the Hong Kong Basic Law Consultative Committee, explaining why the introduction of direct elections was a British conspiracy. The Bank of China also prepared a printed pro-forma opposing letter for its employees to sign and send to the Survey Office.
Consequently, the pro-Beijing supporters mobilised 60,706 written submissions to the Hong Kong government objecting the 1988 direct elections, in which 50,175 came on cyclostyled forms and 22,722 were from the communist-controlled FTU.