There is a convergence of views between the people of Hong Kong and the central government that any chief executive elected under universal suffrage must be acceptable to Beijing, a top government adviser says.
Lau Siu-kai, head of the Central Policy Unit, also said the government would proactively seek public opinion when designing a final proposal for constitutional reform, in order to balance views gathered through submissions from political groups.
Professor Lau said successive opinion surveys conducted by the top government think-tank, as well as polls conducted by other organisations, had shown people in Hong Kong were becoming more pragmatic as society recovered from the economic downturn, partly due to integration with the mainland.
'Because people are becoming more pragmatic, they wish to maintain good relations with the central government. There is a tendency that they do not want to elect someone whom they know would not be acceptable by Beijing,' he said.
'Given the understanding that Beijing also wants to avoid any crisis of its refusal to appoint a winner of the chief executive election that it cannot accept, I believe there is a convergence of views between Hong Kong and Beijing in this matter.' But that did not mean people in Hong Kong had reached a consensus on a vetting mechanism to screen out candidates unacceptable to Beijing, Professor Lau said.
'There is a convergence of views, but not yet a convergence of method,' he said.
