China’s False Promises to Hong Kong

choi

Keith B Richburg, China’s False Promises to Hong Kong; The current crisis goes back to one country, two systems  Washington Post, Oct 3, 2014 (op-ed).
www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ ... 9229cc10_story.html

three consecutive paragraphs:

“In the spring of 2012, I attended the final news conference given by Wen Jiabao, China’s prime minister, who would be stepping down in a planned reshuffling of the top leadership. It was a ritual appearance following the yearly meeting of China’s rubber-stamp legislature, and I was among the foreign journalists invited to submit questions in advance — one of the rare chances for reporters to question a top leader.

“My question for the prime minister was this: With much of the world in 2012 holding democratic elections — the United States, France, South Korea, Japan, Egypt and Taiwan, to name a few countries — when would Chinese be able to enjoy the same privilege of electing their leader? To my surprise, my question was accepted — I was asked only to excise Taiwan from the list — and I was able to ask it at the press conference.

“‘We must pursue a step-by-step approach in this process,’ Wen replied. ‘We also should believe when the people have shown they are capable of running a village, they will also be capable of moving from running village affairs to running the affairs of a township and a county. And that will be a gradual process. It needs to proceed in an orderly way and under the leadership of the party.’


Note:
(a) “Deng Xiaoping, China’s late, great leader, was lauded as a visionary when, in talks with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, he articulated a formula that would allow Communist China to take control of Hong Kong in 1997: ‘one country, two systems.’  It was a construct unique to China, offering Hong Kong what Beijing’s leaders promised would be ‘a high degree of autonomy’ and a ‘gradual’ path to democracy.”

construct (n)
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/construct

(b) “‘There are strong reasons to believe China will honor its commitments to Hong Kong,’ veteran journalist Frank Ching wrote in a typically upbeat article in Foreign Affairs magazine at the time of the ’97 handover. He blamed the foreign press (including, I presume, me) for harboring ‘hostility over China’s military crackdown in Tiananmen Square.’ He added, ‘The press is unwilling to give China the benefit of the doubt.’”
(i) Frank Chin  趙 健秀
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Chin
(1940- ; born in Berkeley, CA; an American writer)
(ii) Fu-jen Chen, Chin, Frank. In: Seiwoong Oh, Encyclopedia of Asian-American Literature. Facts on File, Inc, 2007, listed alphabetically
books.google.com/books?id=H5pbAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT121&lpg=PT121&dq="Frank+Chin"+essayist&source=bl&ots=wfWbQolD23&sig=yte1LwdJny0vpoiSGGqysGDGAhw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=VbIxVKX0JOTCsATPmYCADA&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q="Frank Chin" essayist&f=false
(“Chin, Frank (b 1940- )American short story writer, essayist A novelist, essayist, playwright, editor, and short story writer, Frank Chew Chin, Jr was born in Berkeley, California, in 1940. Describing himself as a 'fifth-generation Chinaman,' Frank Chin is the son of Frank Chew, an immigrant, and Lilac Bowe Yoke, a fourth-generation resident of Oakland Chinatown”)

* Born in South Korea and chair of English Department, Rider University in New Jersey, does not have a Chinese name (though of course he has a name in Korean spelling, hangul).
(iii) About Frank Chin: “父亲是中国移民”
(iv) Zhao (surname)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhao_(surname)
(table for spellings in Cantonese, Hokkien and Teochew, Korean)
(v) I do not know what language the Chew spelling is. I find Chew representing 趙 in Singapore and Hong Kong.
(vi) In my view, the Cantonese pronunciation for 趙 is closest to the ethnic group Jew.