The headlines were full of the news on Sunday that the Preparatory Committee plenum had decided to relax a criterion for Selection Committee membership.
Instead of saying that those opposing the establishment of the provisional legislature would be disqualified as candidates for the Selection Committee - a controversial claim made by senior Chinese official Lu Ping - or adopting the Preparatory Committee's sub-group proposal of requiring candidates to 'recognise' the committee's duty to set up the caretaker legislature, the plenum resolved that candidates must be 'willing to carry out' their duty to name the chief executive and the provisional body.
The watered-down version was immediately interpreted by some Preparatory Committee members as a gesture of leniency.
Is this really so? If one bothers to take a closer look at the whole issue as well as the Basic Law, it is easy to conclude that the Preparatory Committee resolution is just a technical adjustment, instead of a change of substance, from the earlier versions - Beijing's bottom line has not changed at all.
More accurately, this new version was not meant to accommodate the democrats, but rather, it is deemed essential to save the Preparatory Committee from venturing into the dangerous waters of violating the Basic Law.
The source of such danger is outspoken Hong Kong deputy of the National People's Congress (NPC), Liu Yiu-chu, who has openly voiced her objection to the provisional body.
She should be disqualified from the selection body under the more aggressive version raised by Mr Lu, the director of the State Council's Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, or the preparatory body's Selection Committee sub-group.
