- Jul 23, 2013
- 2,115
BY STUART LEAVENWORTH
MCCLATCHY FOREIGN STAFF
BEIJING -- China’s top legislative body on Sunday struck a blow to democracy advocates in Hong Kong, ruling that Beijing can effectively veto candidates it deems undesirable from seeking the region’s top leadership job in a 2017 election.
The move, while hardly unexpected, makes it virtually certain that Hong Kong will soon be home to large-scale protests and acts of civil disobedience that will disrupt one of China’s crucial hubs for trade and banking.
“The democrats will simply have to go to the streets now,” said Michael Davis, a law professor at the University of Hong Kong. Beijing’s leaders, he said are “offering the kind of democracy where they get to vet the candidates, and that is unacceptable to a lot of people here.”
Since it was reunited with China in 1997, Hong Kong has enjoyed a semi-autonomous status, with freedoms of assembly and speech that residents on the mainland can only dream about. But China’s recent actions towards the former British colony has alarmed many Hong Kongers that they may soon lose rights they took for granted.
At issue is Beijing’s interpretation of Hong Kong’s “basic law,” a type of constitution that resulted from Great Britain’s decision to return the territory to China in 1984. The basic law includes language granting Hong Kong a “high degree” of autonomy, including the ability of residents to elect their chief executive in 2017.
How that election will be conducted is now in dispute. Activists in Hong Kong want groups and political parties in Hong Kong to be free to nominate their own candidates. Beijing officials and state media have said for months that will lead to chaos and is in violation of basic law.
On Sunday, the National People’s Congress affirmed that position, meaning that a Hong Kong committee seen as beholden to Beijing will decide which two or three candidates can vie for Hong Kong’s top office. The nominating rules released Sunday require that candidates both “love the country (China)” and “love Hong Kong.”
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/08/31/4320520/hong-kongs-democracy-in-peril.html#storylink=cpy
MCCLATCHY FOREIGN STAFF
BEIJING -- China’s top legislative body on Sunday struck a blow to democracy advocates in Hong Kong, ruling that Beijing can effectively veto candidates it deems undesirable from seeking the region’s top leadership job in a 2017 election.
The move, while hardly unexpected, makes it virtually certain that Hong Kong will soon be home to large-scale protests and acts of civil disobedience that will disrupt one of China’s crucial hubs for trade and banking.
“The democrats will simply have to go to the streets now,” said Michael Davis, a law professor at the University of Hong Kong. Beijing’s leaders, he said are “offering the kind of democracy where they get to vet the candidates, and that is unacceptable to a lot of people here.”
Since it was reunited with China in 1997, Hong Kong has enjoyed a semi-autonomous status, with freedoms of assembly and speech that residents on the mainland can only dream about. But China’s recent actions towards the former British colony has alarmed many Hong Kongers that they may soon lose rights they took for granted.
At issue is Beijing’s interpretation of Hong Kong’s “basic law,” a type of constitution that resulted from Great Britain’s decision to return the territory to China in 1984. The basic law includes language granting Hong Kong a “high degree” of autonomy, including the ability of residents to elect their chief executive in 2017.
How that election will be conducted is now in dispute. Activists in Hong Kong want groups and political parties in Hong Kong to be free to nominate their own candidates. Beijing officials and state media have said for months that will lead to chaos and is in violation of basic law.
On Sunday, the National People’s Congress affirmed that position, meaning that a Hong Kong committee seen as beholden to Beijing will decide which two or three candidates can vie for Hong Kong’s top office. The nominating rules released Sunday require that candidates both “love the country (China)” and “love Hong Kong.”
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/08/31/4320520/hong-kongs-democracy-in-peril.html#storylink=cpy
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