Opinion | Political reform process needs Beijing's input early on
Alice Wu says the visit by two Basic Law Committee officials is a small but key step in getting discussion on political reform up and running
Two legal heavyweights from Beijing flew into town late last week to get dialogue about Hong Kong electoral reform started, but no one is sitting on the edge of their seat.
That's no surprise, since, at this point, there is little to say except for some discussion on ground rules, and possibly shedding some light on Beijing's bottom line.
But let's not overreact - or underreact - to the visit by Basic Law Committee chairman Li Fei and vice-chairman Zhang Rongshun. It was significant, because the two represented the often-publicly-"silent" party in the city's political reform process. Beijing has rarely voiced its thoughts on the matter, at least in the open, either for fear of being charged with the "crime" of "interference", or because it feels it is just too messy to deal with political altercations outside the shelter of a state-controlled media.
It made sense to have the officials here and say what Beijing's Basic Law Committee needs to say at this point. Otherwise, either we have more people reading the tea leaves and getting it wrong, or we're left in the dark; neither has done any good before.
But let's not exaggerate the significance of their visit either. It isn't a "make or break" event for our political future when the first round of public consultations hasn't even started.
"One country, two systems" means we are all stuck with this three-legged stool when it comes to Hong Kong's political reform, whether we like it or not. The three legs - the SAR government, the Legislative Council and Beijing - all have to agree on it or nothing happens. Cutting any one of these legs off from the process would guarantee disaster.