Hong Kong won't be fooled by Beijing's offer of warped democracy

So it's come to this - Hong Kong's democrats are being called upon to accept a deformed version of universal suffrage that closely resembles the warped system devised by the ruling theocracy in the Islamic Republic of Iran. And, if they reject this deformation, they will be blamed for setting back democratic reform.

Beijing's proposals are designed to foster confrontation and show that the central authorities will not blink when it comes to maintaining tight control over the special administrative region.

Meanwhile, the Beijing government has ceased to pretend that the SAR's own government has any significant role to play in important decisions.

Cleverly, Beijing has succeeded in moving this debate's centre of gravity so that the starting point for expectations is somewhere in the nether regions. The usual suspects, who nurture intense dislike for the democratic movement but pretend to occupy the middle ground, have emerged with glee to berate true believers in universal suffrage for not accepting that something is better than nothing.

However, nothing is precisely what's on offer. As matters stand, the same group of Beijing loyalists who "elected" three failed chief executives will, for the 2017 election, simply confine their selection of candidates to whosoever they are ordered to select by their masters.

Outside of the Hong Kong cocoon, a record of three consecutive failures signals a serious problem. In the bizarre world of today's Hong Kong, it is described as an "opportunity".

The born again "low-expectationists" have developed the idea that granting universal suffrage is equivalent to the introduction of democracy. They are either blissfully unaware of history or determined to ignore contrary evidence. Universal suffrage without real choice is the system that prevails in North Korea's ghastly dictatorship, and it was practised in the now dead Soviet Union.