Ever since the election last month of Leung Chun-ying as the next chief executive, the central government has been urging reconciliation. Wang Guangya , the director of the State Council's Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, advised Hong Kong to strive for reconciliation and unity now that the election was over, while Premier Wen Jiabao said he expected Leung's new team to unify different sectors of society - a point also emphasised by President Hu Jintao - and to foster the cohesion of minds on the way ahead.
The 'Great Reconciliation' has now become a catchphrase in local politics. With many media commentaries focusing on the healing of wounds within the establishment camp following the bitter contest between Leung and former chief secretary Henry Tang Ying-yen, which allegedly resulted in a serious split, the real point of a reconciliation has sometimes been lost.
The idea of a great reconciliation was first mooted in 1995 by Taiwan's Shih Ming-teh, the former Democratic Progressive Party chairman, as a settlement between the opposition and the Kuomintang regime, to end the decades-long fission and confrontation in Taiwanese politics. His idea was, however, jeered by both sides of the political divide, and he was ultimately forced to leave his party.
Borrowing the idea from Taiwan, a few democrats in Hong Kong talked of a great reconciliation in the past as a way to resolve the perennial conflict between the pro-Beijing camp and the pro-democracy groups after the 1989 Tiananmen incident. But, like Shih, those who raised the idea were either humiliated by their 'comrades' or simply ignored.
Most recently, in February, the idea of a great reconciliation was picked up by Tsang Yok-sing, president of the Legislative Council and founder of the Democratic Alliance for Betterment of Hong Kong, the pro-Beijing flagship. He tried to pave the way for steering a middle course in local politics.
It is therefore most interesting that Beijing seems to have endorsed the notion of a great reconciliation as a recipe for Hong Kong's political future.
The full meaning of such a reconciliation will take time to evolve, through political debates and interactions, but the background of the term suggests that it will not be simply a truce between the two wings of the establishment camp.
