United front in Hong Kong

The united front in Hong Kong (Chinese: 香港親共主義) is a strategy directed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Government of China to consolidate their control over Hong Kong. To accomplish this aim, a number of different strategies have been used since the 1980s. Today the control is mostly done through manipulation of local elections.

History

1960s–1970s

The Hong Kong and Kowloon Federation of Trade Unions (FTU), an umbrella trade union for the local left-wing unions, was founded in April 1948. After the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War, the local communists remained in their semi-underground status. In the early post-war days, the Hong Kong and Kowloon Federation of Trade Unions, the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce and the Hong Kong Chinese Reform Association became the three pillars of the local pro-CCP organs, following the orders of the New China News Agency, the de facto Communist China's representative in Hong Kong. The FTU took a leading role in the 1967 Hong Kong riots, which is inspired by the 12-3 incident in the Macau, aimed at overthrowing the British colonial rule in Hong Kong. The leftists lost their prestige after the riots for a period of time as the general public was against the violence attributed to the leftists, although the presence of the pro-Beijing Maoist elements remained strong in the universities and colleges throughout the 1970s Hong Kong student protests, in which many of the pro-CCP university and college graduates became the backbones of the pro-Beijing camp today.

1980s

In the 1980s, Beijing tried to control the territory by absorbing Hong Kong's business elite into the united front system. The business members were designated as "delegates" and "advisers".