We don't need foreign help with political reform, says Carrie Lam
Chief Secretary warns against foreign meddling as pan-democrats continue hunger-strike protest
Hong Kong doesn't need foreign countries intervening in its democratic development, the Chief Secretary said yesterday after two top pan-democrats met United States vice-president Joe Biden in Washington.
"Constitutional development is the internal affair of the central and SAR government," Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said. "I believe we have enough wisdom, and need no involvement by foreign countries."
Her comments came after Democratic Party co-founder Martin Lee Chu-ming - who is on a two-week visit to the United States and Canada with former chief secretary Anson Chan Fang On-sang - called on the US Congress to bring back the US-Hong Kong Policy Act.
The Act, passed in 1992, required the US Secretary of State to report to Congress on Hong Kong developments, including its autonomy, until 2007.
The meeting also drew criticism from Hong Kong's Office of the Commissioner of the Foreign Ministry. "We firmly oppose any countries meddling in the city's internal affairs," it said.
Meanwhile, a hunger strike for democracy by four pan-democrats, clocked up 244 hours at 6pm yesterday, with only water and power drinks consumed. Some 13 of the original 17 hunger strikers have given up.
Lam yesterday also commented on an electoral reform proposal put forward by a group of 18 academics, saying it "has not violated the Basic Law".
She said the plan, which allows anyone who receives signatures of support from two per cent of registered voters - or about 70,000 people - to be included in a shortlist for the nominating committee's consideration, is "back to the framework of the mini-constitution".
The results of a poll commissioned by the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong and released yesterday suggested 65.6 per cent of the 1,005 respondents objected to the Occupy Central campaign, up 3.1 per cent from last month.
