Failure of political reform could jeopardise national security, lawmaker warns

A deteriorating political atmosphere could put national security in jeopardy if complete democracy does not arrive in 2017, a Democratic Party lawmaker warned yesterday.

Helena Wong Pik-wan made the comment after she and about a dozen party colleagues met Hong Kong's sole representative on the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), Rita Fan Hsu Lai-tai.

Beijing's representatives have said national security will be a top priority when considering democratic reforms for the 2017 chief executive election. The Standing Committee is expected this month to set a framework for reform. It is expected to set strict nomination requirements for candidates, making it unlikely critics of Beijing could run.

Fan said before the meeting that Beijing "clearly understands" the pan-democrats' opposition to what they call "screening", but said the central government had to take "national security" into account.

But Wong said it was political instability, not the prospect of a leader set against Beijing, that was the true threat to security.

"If political reform fails, the political environment in Hong Kong will quickly deteriorate, social division will be more serious, the city will be harder to govern … and an unstable Hong Kong could pose a real threat to national security," she said, adding that the Democrats did not want such a situation.

The meeting came a day after the Democrats met Beijing's top man in the city, liaison office chief Zhang Xiaoming , and four days after they met Dr David Wong Yau-kar, a local deputy to the NPC, on reform.