Foreign ministry hails 'historic' reform
Any 'unbiased' person would welcome one person, one vote in 2017, spokesman says as UN body prepares to examine city's progress
Allowing Hong Kong to elect its leader by universal suffrage in 2017 would be "historic progress" - and no "unbiased" person would disagree, Beijing's Foreign Ministry said ahead of a United Nations meeting on the city's democratic development.
The remarks by a spokesman for the ministry's commissioner in Hong Kong were Beijing's first response to the news that an October 23 meeting of the UN Human Rights Committee was set to discuss Hong Kong affairs.
"I believe any unbiased person would agree that it is historic progress in Hong Kong's democratic development to implement universal suffrage for the chief executive in accordance with the Basic Law and the [National People's Congress Standing Committee] decision," the spokesman said.
The spokesman described the meeting as a "routine arrangement", but one scholar said the comment could reflect concerns the UN body might again raise the issue of whether Beijing's model for democracy in Hong Kong represented "universal and equal suffrage".
The NPC Standing Committee ruled last month that the city's first one person, one vote election for chief executive in 2017 could feature only two or three candidates who must win majority support from a 1,200-strong nominating committee. That body will be based on the election committee that chose past chief executives. Most of its members are likely to be elected by a few hundred thousand individual and corporate voters.
"The [UN committee] has been [critical] about corporate voting … [and] I expect them to comment on the limitations in the nominating committee, as well as how there are international standards for universal [and equal] voting," said Professor Michael DeGolyer, a Baptist University political scientist.
The UN body, made up of 18 independent experts, monitors how signatories comply with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
In a report last year, the committee urged Beijing to give all Hongkongers the right to vote and to stand for election without unreasonable limitations.
Meanwhile in Beijing, New People's Party chairwoman Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee said Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office chief Wang Guangya had told her that central government officials "had been in contact with pan-democrats in private" over reform. Pan-democrats had said last week that they would not hold further discussions and would veto any reform package based on Beijing's rules.
Wang understood the need for a "way out" of the impasse over political reform, Ip said.
Her party's delegation would meet a "state leader", Ip said, but she declined to say whether it would be NPC chairman Zhang Dejiang . A delegation from the Federation of Trade Unions could meet Zhang today.
