Beijing won't yield to Occupy Central, says ex-Thatcher aide Charles Powell

A former aide to late British prime minister Margaret Thatcher says it is naive to expect Beijing to yield to Occupy Central's demands.

His comments came as a US government group backed the protesters' goals.

Charles Powell, who served as private secretary to Thatcher when Britain negotiated Hong Kong's return to Chinese sovereignty, said he did not believe the protests that have paralysed parts of the city would force change.

"The position about elections has been clear since [the Basic Law] was published in 1991 and I don't believe for one moment that Chinese are going to change that basic position," he said.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4, Powell said Hong Kong had always been part of China. "We rented for a while and we didn't introduce democracy. One reason we didn't is because we knew it was eventually going back to China and it would have been far worse to introduce full democracy and then taken it away from them."

The British peer is now a director of property developer Hongkong Land and chairman of the Asia Task Force, a UK government advisory group on trade and investment.