The 1994 Hong Kong electoral reform was a set of significant constitutional changes in the last years of British colonial rule in Hong Kong before the handover of its sovereignty to the People's Republic of China (PRC) on 1 July 1997. The reform aimed at broadening the electorate base of the three-tiers elections in 1994 and 1995, namely the 1994 District Board elections, the 1995 Urban and Regional Council elections and the 1995 Legislative Council election. It was the flagship policy of the last colonial governor Chris Patten.

The reform became a political storm in Hong Kong politics and diplomatic row between China and Britain. Under the opposition of Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the PRC led by Lu Ping, the bill split the Legislative Council of Hong Kong. It was openly criticized by the Hong Kong tycoons and the diplomat-sinologists of the U.K. Foreign Office for breaching the Seven Hurd-Qian letters between British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd and PRC Foreign Minister Qian Qichen in 1990. The bill secured a dramatic narrow passage after surviving Liberal Party Allen Lee's hostile amendment by one vote 29 to 28 and was eventually passed with the support of the pro-democracy camp. Later the documentary is compiled into a book,

Background The decision of transfer of the sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997 was finalised by the Chinese and British governments on 18 December 1984 in the Sino-British Joint Declaration. The Declaration stated that the Chinese government would resume the exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong (including Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, and the New Territories), effective on 1 July 1997, from the British government. Within these declarations, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall be under the direct jurisdiction of the Central People's Government and shall enjoy a high degree of autonomy, except foreign and defense affairs. It shall be allowed to have executive, legislative and independent judicial power, including that of final adjudication.

The colonial government published the Green Paper: the Further Development of Representative Government in Hong Kong on 18 July 1984, decided to carry out democratic reform in Hong Kong. The first indirect Legislative Council election was held in 1985 and direct election was first introduced in the 1991 Legislative Council election, despite the demand of the Hong Kong pro-democracy camp for a fully direct election in 1988 was turned down by the colonial government.

The 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre sparked a great fear towards China among the Hong Kong people. The British Government thus strengthened its resolve to quicken the pace of democratisation, in order to honour its obligation to the Hong Kong people and gracefully retreat from the colony.

In 1992, British prime minister John Major decided that David Wilson should step down as governor of Hong Kong and removed Percy Cradock as foreign policy adviser; they had been criticised by Hong Kong pro-democrats for their appeasement policies toward Beijing. To some observers, these personnel changes signaled that the British government was unhappy with its two prominent officials on Hong Kong affairs and how Sino-British relationship was proceeding.

Chris Patten, the recently defeated Conservative Party chairman was appointed as the 28th governor of Hong Kong and the first politician appointed to the post. The arrival of Chris Patten on 9 July 1992 marked a new phase of the democratic transition.

Proposal When Chris Patten arrived, the Legislative Council (LegCo) was composed of only 18 directly elected seats from the Geographical Constituencies (GCs), 21 Functional Constituencies (FCs) mostly selected by the powerful elite groups in Hong Kong, 17 members appointed by the governor, 3 ex officio members (namely the chief secretary, attorney general, and financial secretary) and the governor himself as the President of the LegCo.

The electoral method of the 1995 Legislative Council was fixed under the Basic Law, the mini constitution of Hong Kong after 1997, with only 20 directly elected seats from the geographical constituencies, 30 functional constituencies, and 10 seats elected by an election committee. To broaden the democratic structure of LegCo under such a framework, Patten had to find room under the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law.

On 7 October 1992 during his inaugural policy address to the Legislative Council, Chris Patten announced his 1994-95 electoral arrangements. The proposal included: "Single seat, single constituency" measure should be applied in geographical constituency elections including the Legislative Council, Municipal Councils and District Boards; Lowering the minimum voting age from 21 to 18; Abolishing all appointed seats on the District Boards and Municipal Councils; Removing all the restrictions on local delegates to China's National People's Congress to stand for election; Broadening the franchise of certain existing functional constituencies by replacing corporate voting with individual voting; A total of 9 Contemporary functional constituency seats should be brought up so as to let about 2.7 million people have the right to vote; and Introducing an Election Committee of District Board members to return 10 members to the Legislative Council.

In this way, Patten extended the definition of functional constituencies and thus virtually every Hong Kong subject was able to vote for the so-called indirectly elected members of the Legislative Council.

The new nine functional constituencies with much larger eligible electorates that would be created with 2.7 million eligible voters as follows: Primary Production, Power and Construction Textiles and Garment Manufacturing Import and Export Wholesale and Retail Hotels and Catering Transport and Communication Financing, Insurance, Real Estate and Business Services Community, Social and Personal Services

The 2-year PR campaign of the reform was conducted by Michael Hanson, the head of war room of Chris Patten.

Views

PRC government The Chinese government treated Patten's unanticipated top-down reforms as a tactic by Western countries to subvert its political system incrementally. Prior to the announcement of the reform package, British foreign secretary Douglas Hurd had given the details of the proposal to PRC foreign minister Qian Qichen. Beijing warned that some aspects of the plan were in violation of the Basic Law, and the legislature elected in 1995 would not travel through the transfer of the sovereignty in 1997 and beyond, so called the "through-train", as Beijing had promised. They emphasised that any arrangements for the 1995 Legislative Council election should be agreed by both sides beforehand. Beijing saw the Patten proposals as direct confrontation.

Beijing made Patten the principal culprit for the trouble and the Chinese propaganda machine singled him out for attack. The Director of Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council of the People's Republic of China, Lu Ping, labelled Patten as "Sinner of a Thousand Years" () at a press conference. In Hong Kong, Xinhua officials used many occasions to criticise Patten. Zheng Guoxiong, Xinhua Hong Kong's deputy director said that:

Zhou Nan, the director of the Xinhua News Agency in Hong Kong called the Patten proposal "triple violations":

For the Chinese Communist Party, any significant expansion of the electorate base would render Hong Kong less controllable after 1997. That control had already declined after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre in which pro-democracy activists won a historic landslide victory in the 1991 legislative first direct elections on a wave of "anti-China" sentiment.

Pro-democracy camp

The three pro-democratic parties in the Legislative Council, the United Democrats of Hong Kong (UDHK), Meeting Point (MP), and the Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood (ADPL) mostly supported the Patten proposals, even though the United Democrats complained that the reform was too timid to bring real democracy to the Hong Kong people when the proposals were first announced.

The pro-democratic parties had different suggestions for the details of the electoral methods. However, they also desired political stability and smooth transfer of sovereignty as well as to avoid direct confrontation with the Beijing government.

The United Democrats and Meeting Point (later merged into the Democratic Party in 1994) favoured the single-member system. The United Democrats even called for the abolition of 10 seats of the Election Committee and direct election of the 30 legislators, and expanding the franchise of the functional constituencies to cover non-working women, students and retired persons.

Different from the UDHK's suggestion of each vote for the Election Committee and functional constituencies, the ADPL suggested that each citizen should cast one vote for either the functional constituencies or the Election Committee. To avoid a clash with the Beijing government, the party later joined the Beijing-controlled Preparatory Committee and was criticised by some pro-democracy supporters.

Independent legislator Emily Lau and other some other pro-democracy activists was dissatisfied with the relatively conservative stance of the three political parties. She demanded a more radical blueprint of having a full directly elected legislature installed in 1995.

Meeting Point later abstained in the amendment moved by Emily Lau as it thought any infringement of the Basic Law would enrage the PRC government and result in instability and the dismantling of the installed political structure. Although Meeting Point would have liked increased democracy, it did not want to antagonise Beijing unduly.

Pro-business faction

The pro-business party led by Allen Lee in the Legislative Council, who formed the Liberal Party in 1993, followed Beijing's line of opposing the Patten proposals. The party sought to resolve the Sino-Hong Kong confrontation through negotiations.

The conservative Business and Professionals Federation of Hong Kong, led by tycoon Vincent Lo issued a statement in favour of "convergence" with the Basic Law and against the proposals.

British community Although British Prime Minister John Major had full support in the Patten's reform package, the former governor of Hong Kong Lord Murray MacLehose, former ambassador to Beijing Percy Cradock, and former Hong Kong chief secretary David Akers-Jones took a public stance against the Patten proposals. They did not want to risk damaging British business interests by antagonising Beijing. Lord MacLehose attacked Patten for spoiling the "cooperative relationship" between Britain and China over Hong Kong and added "such mindless political polarisation cannot be in Hong Kong's interest" on 11 March 1994. Lord Wilson joined MacLehose in a House of Lords debate on 18 May 1994, again criticising Patten's mistake in making China feel "deliberately tricked" over political reform in Hong Kong.

Cradock stood firmly against Patten and criticised him on many occasions, blaming him for damaging the planned road-map which had been endorsed by both the British and Chinese governments. In 1995, Cradock publicly said in an interview that "He [referring to Patten] has made himself so obnoxious to the Chinese","Sir Percy Cradock dies", RTHK English News, 29 January 2010. and on a subsequent occasion he described Patten as the "incredible shrinking Governor"."Sir Percy Cradock", Telegraph, 28 January 2010.〈英前駐華大使柯利達病逝〉，《蘋果日報》，2010年1月30日。 Yet, Patten did not remain silent and struck back in a Legislative Council meeting, publicly ridiculing him as a "dyspeptic retired ambassador".OFFICIAL RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS, Hong Kong Legislative Council, 13 July 1995. From 1992 to 1997, both Cradock and Patten criticised each other on many occasions, putting them on very bad terms.

Public opinions