Chinese officials rewrote the electoral process for Hong Kong to disempower opposition activists, with local authorities offering respect for “socialism with Chinese characteristics” as a way to end political crises in the region.
“This socialist system with Chinese characteristics under the Chinese Communist Party is written in China’s Constitution,” Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam told reporters. “We should not do anything to undermine the system.”
Chinese authorities revised the process of choosing chief executives to give Beijing’s loyalists a functional veto over high office candidacies, thereby ensuring that “patriots” maintain power in Hong Kong. The overhaul applies locally to the organizing principle of an anti-sedition law passed last year, a measure by which mainland communist officials limited the rights of dissent in the semi-autonomous district in a bid to break the protest movements that have erupted in response to Beijing’s encroachment on the former British colony’s established liberties.
“This fully shows that after years of political dispute and radical social unrest, different sectors in Hong Kong have learned from its pain,” the mainland regime’s Liaison Office in Hong Kong said Thursday.
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The measure is the latest in a series of moves that dissidents regard as an evisceration of the legal structures that allowed Hong Kong “to exercise a high degree of autonomy” from the authoritarian mainland regime in the decades since the United Kingdom relinquished its sovereignty over the former colony. The subsequent “one country, two systems” policy allowed Hong Kong to operate as a powerhouse portal between communist China and the U.S.-led network of capitalist economies.
British authorities agree with the dissidents that Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping has breached the treaty governing the handover of sovereignty from London to Beijing.
“This is the latest step by Beijing to hollow out the space for democratic debate in Hong Kong, contrary to the promises made by China itself,” British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Thursday. “This can only further undermine confidence and trust in China living up to its international responsibilities and legal obligations, as a leading member of the international community.”
Chinese authorities maintained that the measure preserves that deal. “It is to insist on and improve the ‘one country, two systems’ framework,” Chinese Premier Li Keqiang told party officials in Beijing. “To insist on ‘patriots administering Hong Kong’ is to ensure the long-term implementation of ‘one country, two systems.’”
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Lam, who has been sanctioned by the United States for her role in facilitating Beijing’s priorities, portrayed herself as giving a grudging deference to the mainland regime.
“Loving the Communist Party is an obligation of party members. I am not a party member … but we have to accept Hong Kong is part of [China],” she said.
