Now that Hong Kong has entered its 10th year as a special administrative region, pressure is building for Beijing to honour its promise to allow full democratisation of this former British colony.
In 2004, Beijing reneged on promises to allow Hong Kong alone to decide when the entire legislature would be elected by universal suffrage. Moreover, it ruled out full democracy during the next round of elections - next year and in 2008.
As a result, attention is now focused on 2012, when elections are scheduled both for the chief executive and for the Legislative Council.
One problem is that the administration of Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen has toed the central government's line, and insists that Beijing never agreed to allow Hong Kong to decide on its own when to adopt full democracy.
Further, legal scholars in Beijing - believed to reflect the central government's views - have raised additional obstacles. They have laid down preconditions to be met before full democracy, such as the need for patriotic education and the adoption of national security legislation.
Beijing wants to be able to control the outcome of democratic elections before allowing them to proceed. This betrays gross ignorance of what democracy means.
