From the "Through Train" to "Setting Up the New Stove"

From the "Through Train" to "Setting Up the New Stove": Sino-British Row Over the Election of the Hong Kong Legislature This paper analyses the history of the row between Britain and China over the way Hong Kong's legislature should be constituted in the transitional period and after 1997. The governments of both countries approached the matter with different motives and considerations. The tortuous path of interaction between the two governments initially produced a fragile compromise in the form of a "through train" for the legislature. Cooperation however eventually broke down, and the two governments parted company. Britain unilaterally imposed its electoral reforms against China's opposition. To counteract Britain's initiative, China resorted to "setting up the new stove" and designed single-handedly the electoral methods for the first legislature of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Before the first legislature was to be elected, a provisional legislature was set up as a stopgap measure. The resulting discontinuity in the legislative institution has produced serious consequences for Hong Kong's development.