Hong Kong democrat sees China change from within

A leading pro-democracy lawmaker from Hong Kong said Tuesday that change in China would come from its people rather than its leaders and urged efforts to strengthen the mainland's civil society. Alan Leong, who unsuccessfully ran to be Hong Kong's chief executive in the last contest in 2007, warned on a visit to Washington against putting an "unrealistic hope on the leadership of the communist party for change." "If one looks back in Chinese history, change rarely comes from the top," the Civic Party leader said at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank. Instead, the British-educated lawyer called for efforts to build democratic foundations from the bottom up including a prosperous middle class, the rule of law, stronger institutions and an active civil society. "Then as the political reality changes, so will emerge the momentum needed for genuine political reform in China," Leong said. "Non-democratic societies are short-lived. They fail to establish the mutual trust between ruler and ruled that is a necessary prerequisite for lasting stability and good governance," he said. Leong said that China's rapidly growing middle class was "the best hope for genuine political reform," saying it was increasingly speaking out on non-economic issues such as social justice and the environment. But Leong acknowledged that China has cracked down on dissent despite rising incomes. He noted the recent detentions of Liu Xiaobo, a Nobel Prize-winning dissident writer, and Ai Weiwei, an outspoken artist. "Sadly, political reform has not only remained static in my country; we have in some ways even gone backwards," Leong said. Leong urged the United States to "continue to engage China in every way," including through trade and exchanges with civil society. But Leong, who was meeting in Washington with US officials, said it was best for the United States to lead by example. "It will be no good really for the United States -- or indeed for any foreign country -- to be presumptuous in thinking that they can lecture the Chinese Communist Party as to which way the country should go," Leong said. Britain returned Hong Kong to China in 1997 but the city retains a semi-autonomous status. Leong was one of five lawmakers who resigned last year and was re-elected in by-elections meant as a way to speed up electoral reform.