Young Plan (Hong Kong)
| Young Plan | |||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 楊慕琦計劃 | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|||||||||
| Transcriptions | |
|---|---|
| Yue: Cantonese | |
| Yale Romanization | Yèuhng mouh kèih gai waahk |
| Jyutping | Joeng4 mou6 kei4 gai3 waak6 |
The Young Plan was a constitutional reform proposal carried out in 1946 attempting to introduce representative democracy in Colonial Hong Kong. Named after the then Governor, Mark Young, it was the first major reform proposal to give Hong Kong inhabitants a greater share of managing their own affairs by widening the base of Hong Kong's political system through the creation of a new Municipal Council. The proposed Council was to consisted of an elected majority based on a fairly wide franchise, with powers and autonomy over all urban services, education, social welfare, town planning and other functions. It even allowed for indirect election of two Unofficial Members of the Legislative Council (LegCo) by the new Council.
Unofficial Members of the Legislative Council were opposed to the transfer of power to the new body and Young's successor, Governor Alexander Grantham who was opposed to the Young Plan, did not press this issue. Discussion dragged on but the continued opposition of Unofficials in LegCo in addition to the fear of the potential of penetration by Communist China finally killed the plan in 1952. This was the last move towards any form of major electorally-based government until in the 1980s during the Sino-British negotiations on Hong Kong's sovereignty.
The demand and attempts for constitutional reform in Hong Kong had occurred from time to time, but it had been an intractable problem for the Colonial Government due to the overwhelmingly majority of the Chinese population.
Until during the Second World War when Hong Kong was under Japanese occupation, the collapse of the British imperial power in East Asia in the face of Japanese onslaught and also the emergence of a demand form the Chinese Nationalist Government under Chiang Kai-shek for the retrocession of Hong Kong during the war, forced the British Government to seriously examine the possibility of constitutional reform in post-war Hong Kong. By the Young Plan, the Colonial Government meant to create a sense of belonging and loyalty to Hong Kong among all its inhabitants regardless of race in the shadow of increasing Chinese influence over the local population and also China's demand for the return of Hong Kong.
...
Wikipedia