The Foreign Service Journal, May 2005

54 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A Y 2 0 0 5 F O C U S O N C H I N A H ONG K ONG ’ S S EVEN -Y EAR I TCH ver the past two years, demands for greater democracy in Hong Kong have grown louder than ever. The current transition in the territory poses an opportunity for Beijing to listen to those demands — but will it? The March resignation of Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa, Hong Kong’s first post-colonial leader, hardly came as a surprise. As recently as December 2004, Chinese President Hu Jintao publicly exhorted Tung and senior Hong Kong officials to address their shortcomings under the “one country, two systems” principle. O E CONOMIC MALAISE , OUTBREAKS OF DISEASE AND MASS PROTESTS HAVE MARKED H ONG K ONG ’ S FIRST YEARS AS PART OF THE PRC. B Y H EDA B AYRON Jeff Moores