I refer to the letter 'Heralding democracy' (August 25), by C. Y. Leung, in response to my article 'Don't deny democracy' (August 19).
First, the headline was not my own, and second, my article was not pointing fingers at the Basic Law but at certain individuals who seem bent on obstructing the course of universal suffrage in Hong Kong.
I do think the Basic Law paves the way for universal suffrage, or else I would not have quoted it as profusely as Mr Leung noted. That said, I would not pretend to be the expert on the Basic Law that Mr Leung is. He was in a committee that helped draft it, after all, and validly points out that Article 45 states the central government must appoint the elected chief executive.
But that there is something of a contradiction between Article 45 and Article 22 - which I referred to in my article as giving uninterrupted power to the government of Hong Kong - seems to merit debate as to how clear the Basic Law really is. We have seen the debate before in the form of Beijing's 'reinterpretation' of the Court of Final Appeal's ruling on right of abode cases.
My article also said I did not think Mr Leung was explicitly arguing for or against universal suffrage. He clearly was not arguing for it, and I did write that he would be 'hard-pressed' to argue against it. My point was the implicit arguments (and progress) being made against universal suffrage by pro-Beijing officials; the subtle, behind-the-scenes manoeuvring that seems to take place when the chief executive is selected through a shady process by 800 pro-Beijing types to rule over millions of people, many of whom are not pro-Beijing.
As for the comment about foreign nationals being allowed to vote and hold elected office: indeed, Taiwan seems to not adopt such an ideology, the same way America and Britain do not, and the same way Hong Kong's chief executive cannot be a foreign national.