BEIJING – China’s Communist Party is already exerting great influence over the political landscape of Hong Kong. His allies have long controlled a committee that elects the leader of the area. His loyalists dominate the Hong Kong legislature. It ousted four of the city’s elected opposition lawmakers last year.
Now China plans to impose restrictions on Hong Kong’s electoral system to eradicate candidates whom the Communist Party considers unfaithful, a step that could prevent the city’s democratic advocates from voting for any elected office.
The planned overhaul reinforces the Communist Party’s decision to destroy the few remnants of political differences after the 2019 protest against the government that rocked the area. It also builds on a national security law for the city that Beijing enacted last summer, giving authorities comprehensive powers to target dissidents.
Taken together, these efforts are transforming Hong Kong’s free movement, often confusing partial democracy, into a political system more akin to the authoritarian system of mainland China, which requires almost total obedience.
“In our country where socialist democracy is practiced, political disagreement has been allowed, but here is a red line,” Xia Baolong, China’s director of affairs in Hong Kong and Macau, said on Monday in a strongly worded speech outlining the intentions. of Beijing. “It must not be allowed to damage the fundamental system of the country, that is, to damage the leadership of the Communist Party of China.”
“The central government wants Hong Kong to be governed by ‘patriots,'” he said. Xia said and will not allow the Hong Kong government to rewrite the area’s laws as previously expected, but will do so itself.
Mr. Xia did not go into detail, but Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam confirmed the broad outlines of the plan and said on Tuesday that years of uninterrupted protests over Hong Kong’s political future had forced the national government to act.
When Britain returned Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, the territory was promised a high degree of autonomy, in addition to maintaining its capitalist economic system and the rule of law.
But in the decades that followed, many of the city’s 7.5 million residents became wary of Beijing’s encroachment on their freedoms and unfulfilled promises of universal suffrage. The Communist Party, in turn, was concerned about the growing open resistance to its government in the city and blamed what it called hostile foreign powers aimed at undermining its sovereignty.
This tension increased in 2019 when masses of Hong Kong residents marched on the streets for months, partly calling for universal suffrage. They also delivered a striking reprimand to Beijing by giving pro-democracy candidates a stunning victory in long-dominated local district elections.
The latest planned overhaul seeks to prevent such turmoil in the election, and, more importantly, Beijing will also take a much stricter grip on the 1,200-member committee that will decide early next year who the city’s chief executive will be for the next will be five years.
Various groups in Hong Kong society – bankers, lawyers, accountants and others – will vote this year to elect their representatives to the committee. The urgency of the move by the Communist Party indicates a concern that democracy sentiment in Hong Kong is so strong that the party could lose control of the committee unless it serves the democratic proponents of service.
Lau Siu-kai, a senior adviser to the Chinese leadership on Hong Kong policy, said the nationalist legislature of China by the Communist Party is expected to push for a snap of the election when it meets in Beijing for its annual session starting on March 5th.
Mr. Lau, a former senior official in Hong Kong, said the Chinese legislature, the National People’s Congress, is likely to try to set up a senior government official with the legal authority to investigate every candidate for a public office, and to determine whether each candidate is sincerely loyal to Beijing.
The plan will cover candidates for nearly 2,000 elected positions in Hong Kong, including the committee that selects the chief executive, the legislature and the district councils, he said.
The new election law that is being drafted now will not be retroactive, said Mr. Lau said, and current district councilors will retain their seats as long as they abide by the law and swear loyalty to Hong Kong and China.
Beijing officials and state news media outlets last month issued a call for Hong Kong to be run exclusively by people who are ‘patriots’. In terms of Beijing, the term is narrowly defined as loyalty to mainland China and especially to the Chinese Communist Party.
China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, raised the issue with Mrs Lam at the end of January, telling her that ruling patriots in Hong Kong was the only way to ensure the city’s long-term stability. And on Tuesday, the Hong Kong government said it would introduce a bill requiring district councilors to take loyal oaths and banning candidates from holding office for five years if they become dishonest or insufficiently patriotic.
“You can not say, ‘I am patriotic, but I do not respect the fact that it is the Chinese Communist Party that leads the country,'” Erick Tsang, Hong Kong’s secretary of state for constitutional and land affairs, said in a statement. news conference said.
Michael Mo, a pro-democracy district councilor who was outspoken in his criticism of the government, said he intended to take the loyal oath, but that he had no control over whether it would be enough for the authorities.
“It does not depend on me to determine if I am a patriot,” he said. Mo said. “The so-called pass point is unknown.”
The moves of the government can further relax the freedom of speech and political debate in the city. Since Beijing enacted the National Security Act, the city’s authorities have used it for widespread repression. They arrested more than 100 people, including activists, politicians, an American lawyer and a pro-democracy publisher.
“I can only say that people worry about it – for example, if criticism of the Communist Party or the political system in China is not considered patriotic, then they have this kind of censorship,” said Ivan Choy, a senior lecturer in government and public administration at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Prior to last year’s security law, Beijing generally allowed the Hong Kong legislature to draft laws governing the area. In a sign of how far-reaching the new approach of previous years is, some Hong Kong politicians initially expressed skepticism that Beijing would once again bypass local officials to introduce legislation.
Monday, a few hours after Mr. Xia, the Chinese official in charge of affairs in Hong Kong, told Holden Chow, a legislature, that he still expects Hong Kong to formulate the election changes itself, as has been the tradition.
But on Tuesday, when a battery of officials declared their expectation that Beijing would act directly, Mr. Chow said he had changed his mind and that he fully supported the central government’s intention.
He said Beijing’s actions did not diminish the influence of Hong Kong’s leaders. “I do not think you will find these things very often,” he said of the direct action against electoral reform and national legislation.
“It’s only in connection with these two important and important matters,” said Mr. Chow said. “I still believe we need to play another role going forward.”
Keith Bradsher reports from Beijing, and Vivian Wang and Austin Ramzy from Hong Kong. Tiffany May reported from Hong Kong.