My visit is quite timely because Mr. C. H. Tung, the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region is in Washington. He will be meeting with President Clinton on Friday and if you have been following news about Hong Kong, you would have read some coverage about what he has been saying. Tonight, I will give you the other side.

We are now just two months since the handover. Mr. Tung has been busily telling people in Washington that it is "business as usual," that nothing has changed and that we are all very happy. Well, I am not very happy. Why? Because I am now unemployed. The first thing that happened in Hong Kong on the stroke of midnight, 30 June 1997, when the Chinese Communist government took over was that all of the 6.3 million people in the former British colony were disenfranchised.

The British started having elections, real elections, in 1991 that was the year that I was elected. Although we have a population of over 6 million, our legislature is very small and has only sixty members. Of these sixty, in 1991 only eighteen were elected by universal suffrage via one person-one vote. In 1995, that number went up to twenty, meaning that one-third of the Council was elected by universal suffrage. But Chris Patten lost his seat in the British general election in 1994, and was sent out to Hong Kong as the last colonial governor. He tried to democratize the other rules of election, which [called for] election by limited franchise, or what we call "functional constituency." He expanded the franchise of certain new constituencies.

When the Chinese took over on July 1st, they decided that all of the reforms put into place by Chris Patten were unacceptable. They said they would dismantle the Council and they did. I do not think anybody owes me a living. It is not as if I am saying that, come July 1st, someone must give me a job, or that we must have a political through-train. No, I mean that if the Chinese government and the British government agree on the constitutional set-up than we could have had a through-train.

What do we mean by "through-train"? We mean that the Council, elected in 1995, was elected to serve a four-year term. We could have been allowed to serve the full term, which would run until 1999, straddling the take-over. But the Chinese said, no through-train, the Council must be dismantled. I do not think that is the end of the world because I accept that, with the end of colonial rule, the whole colonial regime comes to an end: the executive, the legislative, and even the judiciary everything. We must have a clean start. [To do so] would leave the Chinese government with only one option: to call fresh elections. But the Chinese said sorry, no time to call elections. They appointed a provisionary legislature to take the place of the partially-democratically-elected legislature that was chosen in 1995. In fact, thirty-three of my colleagues in the Council decided that they wanted to join the Provisional Legislature. The Chinese appointed four hundred people (whom they called the Selection Committee) to select the Provisional Legislature, but those of us in the pro-democracy movement, including myself and my colleagues on the Frontier Party and the Democratic Party (led by Mr. Martin Lee), refused to take part in that farcical process. So we were all thrown out.

Now, if you go to Hong Kong and ask the people there, they will tell you that they have no elected representatives in the legislature. In fact, the whole government of Hong Kong has been imposed on us by Peking, so I think it is really quite disgraceful for C.H. Tung to go around America telling the Americans that everything is "business as usual" and "the Hong Kong people are very happy." Although I have been thrown out of office, I still regard myself as a legitimately elected representative of the Hong Kong people, and I tell you tonight that the Hong Kong people are not very happy. In fact, for those of you who were in Hong Kong on June 30th and July 1st, you probably recall that there was no euphoria, no sense of jubilation, except that generated by the pro-Communist groups. The vast majority of the Hong Kong people did not really celebrate. Of course, there is no doubt that we were very happy to see the end of colonial rule. No decent, upstanding human being would like to be a citizen and inhabitant of another colony, so we wanted to see the back of the British. But we had no control over our destiny. We never did. And I do not know whether we ever will.

In the past, the British imposed a government on us; now, the Chinese impose a government on us. I moved for a debate in the Legislative Council a few months ago saying that we are going to have continued colonial rule we changed the flag but it is still colonialism. What is my definition of colonialism? It is the fact that you are being governed by a government that has been imposed on you from an outside power. This time, it is from Peking.

So ladies and gentlemen, I want to tell you that it is not business as usual in Hong Kong. The people have been disenfranchised. Even before July 1st, and even before the SAR government was formed, this objectionable, provisional legislature started operating. It started operating in March 1997, months before the SAR government was born. One of the things that it did was change two very important laws in Hong Kong: the Public Order Ordinance and the Societies Ordinance. These laws govern our freedom of association and our freedom of assembly. We actually changed these laws a few years ago, taking away from the Commissioner of Police the power to determine whether the Hong Kong people can have demonstrations and whether they can form groups and associations. But the Chinese government thought that was too much they thought that the police and the Hong Kong authorities must have the power to control whether the Hong Kong people can demonstrate or can form groups. Even before the SAR was born, they asked the provisional legislature to bring back those Draconian colonial powers. So when Mr. Tung tells you that everything is "business as usual," it includes the fact that the police have the power to decide whether Hong Kong people can demonstrate or not. He will say that there have been many demonstrations in the past two months. Yes, that is true some of us did not even bother to apply for permission from the police.

Somebody showed me a news cutting yesterday saying that because the World Bank will be having its annual meeting in Hong Kong later this month, [Hong Kong] police are very anxious about some groups which are planning to demonstrate. Of course, these groups do not bother to apply for permission. The police will actually try to approach these groups and ask if they are going to demonstrate, and offer to give them a permit. What they do not want is to find these people breaking the law and then have to arrest them in front of hundreds of foreign correspondents. It is true that we still have the freedom to demonstrate in the sense that the police have not yet used those Draconian powers. It is also true that the SAR government has not yet closed down any newspapers. And, of course, it is patently true that people like myself and Martin Lee have not yet been locked up. But does that mean it is business as usual? I do not think so.

When I was a journalist and even when I became a politician, I would always invite people to go back and look at the things that I have written because it is all there in black and white. I have never said that once the Chinese take over, we will all be locked up, we will lose our freedoms immediately. No, but I have said, and I still maintain today, that we are very fearful of the possibility of losing our freedoms, and fearful of people being intimidated into silence. That is why the Frontier was born last year. It was formed as the pro-democracy lobby group, a pro-democracy movement, and not a political party. It was formed in August 1996 because we saw that too many Hong Kong people had become too quiet. They dare not speak out. Why? Because they were afraid, they are afraid of the Chinese Communist authorities. What are they afraid of? [They are afraid of] the Chinese authorities' habit of settling accounts with its enemies, even if it is weeks, months, or years down the road.

I know that what I say here tonight, maybe even a transcript of my speech, will be given to the Chinese authorities very soon. I think my file is probably very thick. The material there could be used to purge and persecute me in the future. I am not saying that it will definitely happen, but there is that likelihood. If that should happen in the future, I am the last person to be surprised. This is what Chinese people know.

We in Hong Kong are decent, upstanding human beings. We want to live in a stable and prosperous environment, but we also want to be democratic and free. [We have] aspirations which many Americans cherish and which many of you take for granted. I can assure you, we in Hong Kong cannot take those things for granted. We will stand up and fight.

When people have a chance, they have shown that they vote for people like us, like the Frontier and the Democratic Party. But sadly, although next year we are going to have elections, they [will not be] democratic elections. As I said earlier, we have a Council of only sixty, which is very small. Under the proposals made by Mr. Tung in July, only twenty of the members would be returned by universal suffrage via one person-one vote. The remaining forty seats would be returned by limited franchise.

Just a moment ago, I talked about functional constituencies, which would return thirty members. What are functional constituencies? Even the name is very offensive it means that if you do not belong to a functional constituency, you have no function. I can assure you that I do not belong to a functional constituency. It is only those people who belong to a functional constituency who will have the second vote, and they can elect thirty people to dominate the Council.

So who are these lucky functional constituencies? Banks the banks together make up the financial functional constituency. Under Mr. Tung's proposal, each bank will have a vote and together they elect a banker. Another functional constituency is the General Chamber of Commerce, which is made up of companies. Each company within the Chamber will have a vote. If you are lucky enough to control sixty companies, as do some of the very rich Hong Kong tycoons, that means you have sixty votes. It is not all corporate voting. There are individuals as well. If you are an attorney, you belong to the legal constituency. If you are a doctor, you belong to the medical constituency. This goes on: if you are an accountant, an architect, an engineer. When Chris Patten tried to reform the functional constituency in 1995, he expanded the franchise. He gave the vote to 2.7 million people. Now Mr. Tung thinks that is too much. He wants to return to corporate voting, restricting [the franchise], which has now been cut to 180,000.

Just to tell you a true story: I was in Italy earlier this year, and I visited Palermo. I went to the catacombs, which are usually just full of holes. But in one [catacomb], they actually have mummies there 8,000 of them, put there between the 17th and the 19th century. Not just mummies, but they were all dressed up. This one group is the lawyers and another group is the clergy, and another group is the traders. When my husband and I saw that, we said, "Aah, functional constituencies!" Well, that is where they belong.

Apart from the thirty seats which would be functional constituency, there would be ten that would be returned by an election committee, consisting of 800 people. Who are these 800 people? Again, of course, they are drawn from the functional constituencies. We in the pro-democracy movement will take part in the elections, but only in those twenty [seats] that are going to be returned by universal suffrage. It is unlikely that we will win all twenty because it is going to be by proportional representation, and some of the Communist parties have some support, so they will get some of the seats. Maybe we'll get 15 or 16, if we are lucky. So no matter how hard we try, under such a system, we will always be in a tiny minority. In the Council, we will be outvoted. And that is our fate for the immediate future.

Mr. Tung has said that in ten years time, there may be a chance for full democracy. Do you know what will happen in ten years time, when we are supposed to review the system? It must be decided upon by two-thirds of the Legislative Council and approved by the Chief Executive and approved by Peking before we can make further steps ahead. I do not think that is going to be easy. It is not "business as usual."

Maybe it will be business as usual if you come to trade and do business. Maybe that is fine. But I would like to think that even businessmen care about an environment that is underpinned by the rule of law, which has a level playing field, which is not too corrupt, in which the executive is checked by an elected legislature so we have a transparent system. Yet all these things are in doubt. Increasingly, more and more Hong Kong people think that now and in the future, the government will be controlled by a small group of very rich people, friends of Mr. C. H. Tung. They and Peking put C.H. Tung there, so C. H. is going to be accountable to them, and not to us.

Nevertheless, we will not give up. We know the difficulties. I want to stand for election next year. I am a British citizen. I have to give up my citizenship to stand. Under the law, foreign citizens can stand because the Chinese recognize that there are many Hong Kong people who have gone abroad to acquire foreign citizenship. So they put in the basic law that twelve of the members of the Council can have foreign citizenship. But Mr. C.H. Tung decided to handpick twelve functional constituencies and say those twelve can have foreign citizenship, but the rest cannot. He knows that I am not going to stand for election in a functional constituency, so if I chose to stand I must give up my British citizenship. I do not mind giving it up. But if our constitution says that we can [have foreign citizenship], then I would expect our government, our executive, to implement that in a very fair fashion and not to do it in such a willful way.

This is the administration we are facing people who just do things their way and then run around and tell foreigners it is "business as usual," "the Hong Kong people are very happy." Ladies and gentlemen, I may sound very angry to you, and I am sorry, but I am angry. I am angry that the Hong Kong people have been lied to. We were told that we were going to be masters of our own house, but that is a lie. We have never been masters of our own destiny and I do not know whether we ever will. Sometimes in my more pessimistic moments, I feel that Hong Kong will never have democracy in my lifetime and I am 45, but I can assure you, we will try very hard. The people who have come before me have tried and when I am gone the others will carry on. One fine day, we will be there.

What I want to know, and would like to know, is that apart from us trying very hard in Hong Kong, we also have very good friends in freedom-loving countries, including America, who will do what they can to help us. Things are still okay right now, but we can't be sure. If times get rough, if they start arresting people, closing down newspapers maybe they don't even have to go that far we hope that we can rely on our friends here in America and in the rest of the international community to come to our help. After all, we live in a global village.

I want to thank you very much tonight for giving me the opportunity to brief you on what is happening. I invite you all to come out to Hong Kong to see us. But most importantly, do not let people mislead you. I am sure you are all intelligent people who know what is going on, and I certainly hope that if we should be in trouble, we, tiny little Hong Kong, what I call a pimple on the bump of the Communist giant when we are in trouble, I hope you will do something to help us.