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August 31, 2014

Beijing Rules Out Open Elections in Hong Kong

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5:42pm - 31 Aug 14

A storm front moved over Hong Kong on Sunday as protesters began gathering before China's legislature announced its decision on suffrage in the territory.

ALEX OGLE / AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

By CHRIS BUCKLEY, MICHAEL FORSYTHE and ALAN WONG

AUGUST 31, 2014

HONG KONG — China’s legislature laid down strict limits on Sunday to proposed voting reforms in Hong Kong, drawing battle lines in what democratic opposition groups warned would be a deepening confrontation over clashing visions of the political future of the city and of China.

Pushing back against months ofrallies calling for free, democratic elections in Hong Kong, the National People’s Congress Standing Committee set out procedural barriers for candidates for the city’s top leader that would ensure Beijing remains the gatekeeper to that position and to political power over the city.

Li Fei, a deputy secretary general of the committee, told a news conference in Beijing that the legislature’s nominating guidelines —including that candidates must “love the country, and love Hong Kong” —would “protect the broad stability of Hong Kong now and in the future.”

The move closes one of the few avenues left for gradual political liberalization in China after a sustained campaign against dissent on the mainland this year under President Xi Jinping. In taking its offensive to Hong Kong, Beijing has set up a showdown with a protest movement unlike any it has ever faced, one that enjoys civil liberties denied in the rest of China and, capitalizing on those freedoms, has adopted a much more confrontational approach than seen before in Hong Kong.

From left, Edward Chin, organizer of Financial Professionals for Occupy Central, Benny Tai, co-founder of the Occupy Central movement, and the activist Bob Kraft addressed members of the news media at a protest outside government offices in Hong Kong on Friday.

ALEX OGLE / AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

Hong Kong opposition groups and politicians who have campaigned for unfettered voting for the city’s leader, the chief executive, said the limits set by Beijing made a mockery of the “one person, one vote” that had been promised to Hong Kong.

“After having lied to Hong Kong people for so many years, it finally revealed itself today,” said Alan Leong, a pro-democracy legislator. “Hong Kong people are right to feel betrayed. It’s certain now that the central government will be effectively appointing Hong Kong’s chief executive.”

Beyond its effect on this former British colony of 7.2 million people, the tight reins on voting in Hong Kong reflect the fear among leaders in Beijing that political concessions here would ignite demands for liberalization on the mainland, a quarter-century after such hopes were extinguished on Tiananmen Square in 1989.

“They are afraid that caving in to Hong Kong would show weakness,” Minxin Pei, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College in California, said in a telephone interview. “They believe the political weakness will encourage Hong Kong to demand more and will give opponents of the party’s rule in China great confidence to challenge the party.”

In the adjacent mainland, advocates and opponents of political liberalization alike have seen Hong Kong as a potential incubator for change in China since it was returned to Chinese rule in 1997. Since then, the territory has had considerable autonomy and retained a wealth of Western-style freedoms under an arrangement known as “one country, two systems.”

The main pro-democracy organization here, Occupy Central with Love and Peace, has announced plans to stage civil disobedience protests in Central, the financial heart of Hong Kong. Other groups were also preparing to protest, and the Hong Kong Federation of Students urged university students to boycott classes.

“We’re facing a big crisis, caused by the poor governance of Hong Kong,” Benny Tai, a co-founder of Occupy Central and a law lecturer at the University of Hong Kong, said at a rally outside Hong Kong government headquarters on Friday, when the outlines of the Chinese legislature’s plan were already known.

“We will have different kinds of actions. Some of the actions might be legal, some of the actions might be illegal,” he said. “The climax will surely be the Occupy act in Central.”

Since taking leadership of the Communist Party almost two years ago, Mr. Xi has orchestrated intense campaigns in China against political dissent and demands for competitive democracy, civil society and a legal system beyond party control.

But Hong Kong presents special challenges. The struggle over electoral change here pits the Chinese authorities and their allies in Hong Kong against an opposition that claims robust middle-class support, protections by the city’s independent judiciary and some voice in anindependent, though beleaguered, news media.

“China’s two most important cities are Beijing and Hong Kong,” Hu Jia, a prominent dissident in Beijing, said in a telephone interview on Sunday. He said he had been placed under house arrest, like other dissidents, before the National People’s Congress announcement.

“In the territory controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, only Hong Kong has some space for free speech, some judicial independence, so it is a mirror for people on the mainland,” he said. “The outcome of this battle for democracy will also determine future battles for democracy for all of China.”

Chinese party-run newspapers have accused Hong Kong’s democratic groups of serving as tools for subversion by Western forces seeking to chip away at party control.

Mr. Li, the legislative official, on Saturday accused them of “sowing confusion” and “misleading society” by arguing that elections for the Chief Executive should follow international standards. “Each country’s historical, cultural, economic, social and political conditions and circumstances are different, and so the rules formulated for elections naturally also differ,” he said.

An unnamed Chinese Foreign Ministry official warned that opposition groups were “vainly attempting to turn Hong Kong into a bridgehead for engaging in subversion and infiltration into mainland China,” the People’s Daily newspaper reported Saturday.

Under current law, the Hong Kong executive is chosen by an Election Committee, whose approximately 1,200 members are selected by elite constituencies generally loyal to Beijing.

According to the Chinese legislature’s proposal, the leader would be chosen by popular vote starting in 2017, as promised, but candidates would have to first win an endorsement from at least half the members of a nominating committee. The composition of that committee would be similar to that of the current Election Committee, according to the decision, announced at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, and democracy advocates expect it would exclude candidates seen as unfavorable by Beijing.

Democratic politicians, groups, academics and businesspeople say that system precludes real choice, and they have put forward various proposals for a nominating committee that would be more democratically representative of the electorate, while others have focused their demands on creating means for voters and parties to directly nominate candidates.

In an informal referendum in Juneorganized by Occupy Central, 787,000 Hong Kong residents voted in favor of proposals that would give voters the power to directly put forward candidates. But the Chinese government fears that direct nominations would allow candidates hostile to Beijing, and it has said direct nominations would also contravene the Basic Law, the document governing Hong Kong’s relationship with the mainland.

Now the Hong Kong government must use the Chinese legislature’s proposal as a framework for putting together a detailed electoral reform plan that must win approval from the city’s Legislative Council. But if the 27 democratic members of the 70-member council remain unified, the could block the two-thirds majority needed for the plan to pass into law.

Emily Lau, chairwoman of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party, said they would. “We will veto this revolting proposal,” she said Sautrday.

If they do, those lawmakers would also have to bear responsibility for torpedoing Hong Kong’s chance to implement universal suffrage, however imperfect, said Regina Ip, leader of the pro-establishment New People’s Party and a member of the Legislative Council. “Hong Kong’s voting public will be intensely disappointed,” she said in an interview.

The clash in Hong Kong will be more about winning over public opinion than winning control of the crowded streets. Opinion polls show that most people in Hong Kong support the demand for “unfiltered” electoral choice, but also that many have qualms about possible disruption from protests.

The Chinese government and the Hong Kong political establishment have accused Occupy Central and allied groups of recklessly imperiling the city’s reputation for political stability and putting business first. And many ordinary Hong Kong residents have voiced worry about any political conflict that could hurt their livelihoods.

But Occupy Central says it will engage in nonviolent civil disobedience calibrated to avoid major disruption. Its organizers have said that they do not plan to plunge immediately into any protests after the Chinese authorities announce their plans.

“We’re not making threats, we’re just sending warning signals,” said Mr. Tai, the co-founder of Occupy Central. “The house is on fire, something has to be done.”

Patrick Zuo contributed research from Beijing.