Organised political activity is a relatively new phenomenon in Hong Kong, leaving aside Chinese parties such as the Communist Party and the Kuomintang, which have been present (though illegal) since the 1920s and kept a low profile in Hong Kong politics with the exception of a short period in 1967 when the CP challenged the colonial administration under the influence of the Cultural Revolution in China. Neither CPC nor KMT are openly registered in Hong Kong today.

Hong Kong democratic parties originated in the political pressure groups formed in the 1970s as the colonial government started to democratise the political structure for the development of a representative government. The pro-China parties, as well as the parties of the business elite, were established in the 1990s to create a counterweight to the democrats following the landslide victory of the latter in the 1991 Legislative Council (Legco).
The parties represented in the current Provisional Legislature are:
The Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong founded in 1991 (DAB, in alliance with the FTU); the leading pro-Beijing party (11 seats); the Liberal Party, representing business interests (10 seats); and smaller pro-Beijing groups: the HK Progressive Alliance, founded in 1994 on the initiative of the Chinese government as a back-up to the DAB (6 seats), the Association for Democracy and Peoples Livelihood ( ADPL) (4 seats) and the Liberal Democratic Federation (3 seats). The ADPL, after initially opposing the establishment of the Provisional Legislature, subsequently changed its position. This led to a split and to the creation of a group calling itself the Social Democratic Front.
The largest democratic opposition party is the Democratic Party (formerly the United Democrats of Hong Kong), led by Martin Lee Chu-ming. It is also the largest party in terms of electoral support, winning 12 of the 18 geographically-based directly elected seats in the 1991 Legco and 13 out of the 20 directly elected seats (plus six others in the functional constituencies) in the 1995 Legco. It defends human and democratic rights as well as social welfare programs. The DP demands that elections to the legislative body be held by universal suffrage (one person, one vote) in geographical constituencies only (this would require a change in the Basic Law and would need the endorsement of the National Peoples Congress in Beijing).
The DP has had a close working relation with the independent HK Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU): its chairman Lau Chin-shek has until recently been a member of the DP Executive and Szeto Wah, former president of the Teachers’ Union, is a former DP Legco member, but other leading members of the DP have not always been consistent in defending labour rights. Politically the DP could be described as a liberal democratic party which also includes some social-democrats.
Among the smaller democratic parties, the Citizenship Party, chaired by Christine Lo Kung-wai, may be mentioned.
The Frontier, a loosely-organised political group, more activist than the DP but partially overlapping with it, was formed at the end of 1996. It has been more militant in its advocacy of democracy as well as workers’ rights and is led by former journalist Emily Lau Wai-hing, HKCTU general secretary Lee Cheuk-yan, HKCTU chairman Lau chin-shek, HKCTU activist Leung Yiu-chung and former senior government official Elizabeth Wong Chien Chi-lien. Like other pro-democracy groups, Frontier is facing financial and staffing problems. Emily Lau, for example, finances her electoral campaign through street collections.
The Hong Kong Alliance in Support of the Patriotic Democratic Movement in China, formed in the aftermath of the suppressed democratic movement in China in 1989, also operates outside of the formal political framework. It has spearheaded the annual June 4 demonstrations and protests against China’s human rights record. It is supported by several DP and Frontier leaders, and has been attacked as “subversive” by the Chinese authorities and their representatives in Hong Kong.
Further left, there is the April 5 Action (A5A), an independent socialist group (named after the first Tiananmen incident of April 5, 1976), and two Trotskyist groups: October Review (which sporadically publishes a journal by the same name) and Partisan. All three are very small and marginal.
Many observers remark on the limitations of the political platforms of Hong Kong parties. This is the result of a century of de-politicisation. It is not as though the population of Hong Kong was impervious or indifferent to politics. Electoral campaigns and demonstrations in recent years (including a million people in the streets in support of the pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing and elsewhere in China in June 1989) have proven the contrary. What is lacking, is the depth and sophistication that come from a long tradition of political activity.
The platform of the right-wing parties (pro-business and pro-China) is clear and simple: defense of the power and the wealth of the business establishment and “stability” at all costs. The parties of the democratic opposition have a more complicated task: they need to develop a comprehensive economic, social and political program for an alternative society in Hong Kong, in the context of China. So far, they have proven unequal to the task: they act more like public-interest or single issue NGOs, basically focused on the human rights issue, than political parties in the full sense of the word. None of the existing organisations, for example, occupies the political space of social-democracy: this can only be said of a number of individuals, in the DP and in Frontier (and in the HKCTU) without an organised political home so far.