PRC United Front strategy

The PRC United Front strategy is a series of coordinated efforts directed by the Communist Chinese Government centralized in Beijing to attain greater 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.

Its public agency is the PRC's Liaison Office. Prior to revision of these policies, it was the Hong Kong branch of Xinhua News Agency. The Communist Party of China is the de facto driving force behind this office. The stated goal of this office is to afford greater control by Beijing over the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

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".

After Communist China's Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, the strategy was changed. Because the working and peasant class far outnumber the appointed government elite, Policy makers in Beijing realized they could not afford to let democracy take root in the general populace. They decided to manipulate the minds of the 2 million workers and ordinary wage earners in Hong Kong. They explicitly target the leadership of Kaifong associations, district boards and local municipal councils.

Up until the 1980s the Communist Chinese government did not want to form its own pro-authoritarian political parties in Hong Kong as the pro-democracy camp was clearly more popular.

...
Wikipedia