Christine Loh: Hong Kong must be given the democracy it desires

From a speech by the head of Hong Kong's Civic Exchange at the Institute for Public Policy Research in London

The Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao, has arrived in Britain for his first official visit. Britain has an opportunity to get to know the man who will likely remain in power for the coming decade. A useful window to assess Chinese leaders' readiness to embrace change is through Hong Kong, Britain's former colony, which reverted to Chinese rule in 1997.

The signs there are mixed. On the one hand, democratisation is the talk of the town. Survey after survey shows that the people of Hong Kong desire democracy. Yet, they must exist in a time warp, as on 26 April Beijing essentially ruled out the possibility of universal suffrage for the election of the Hong Kong chief executive in 2007 and the legislature in 2008. The pronouncement was made by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, which is China's highest organ of state power.

It would be encouraging if Wen can confirm that Beijing will be ready to allow Hong Kong to democratically elect its political leaders the next time round, in 2011 and 2012 respectively, so that Hong Kong people can begin deliberation immediately on how to redesign its extremely awkward political system for universal suffrage, and use the elections set for 2007 and 2008 as a stepping stone to that ultimate aim.

By allowing this to happen, China can achieve its goal of a gradual and orderly progression towards democracy in Hong Kong over the next seven to eight years. Hong Kong's political elites can then have time and space to sustain a dialogue with Beijing and ready themselves by producing clear, electoral agenda.