Entering the Legco Building has ceased to be taboo for mainland officials, says solicitor and provisional legislator Kennedy Wong Ying-ho.
Wang Guisheng, Chinese senior representative of the Joint Liaison Group, was seen at the interim body's guest day last week.
It turned out he had been invited to a lunch by President Rita Fan Hsu Lai-tai.
Mr Wong, 34, said: 'I sensed that a new era has dawned. This was unthinkable before July 1.
'They [mainland officials] had all along disliked entering a colonial parliament. This was because the power of the Legislative Council derived from the Letters Patent and the Royal Instructions.
'It was like the case of whether they would enter Government House where the colonial master resided . . . Of course, they would not enter there.
'This was a sort of subjective national dignity.' Mr Wong said the sharp dichotomy of 'them and us' -'pro-British' or 'pro-Beijing' - in the former legislature has already gone.
