My Take | Why we don’t have universal suffrage in 2020
- Protesters can blame Beijing all they want but the opposition pan-democrats cannot escape responsibility for vetoing a reform package that would have allowed full suffrage for the legislature from this year onwards
If you randomly ask foreigners around the world why Hong Kong doesn’t have universal suffrage, insofar as they care at all, most or perhaps all of them would say it’s because of Beijing. If you ask Hong Kong people the same question, many would say the same.
But if you ask foreigners to give details about why that is so, most would not be able to. Most probably don’t know we have a limited or “hybrid” democratic system and assume Beijing lords over the city in all essential aspects.
I don’t blame them; I don’t really know how the electoral college system works in the United States. Isn’t it against the popular votes and therefore undemocratic? But at least I don’t think the US voting system is any of my business.
Many Americans, though, think our voting system is their business. Ignorance is why it has been possible to feed foreigners a narrative about Hong Kong via the mainstream global media that is simplistic and fundamentally false. Hong Kong people don’t have the luxury of ignorance. If they are honest, they should admit it’s a far more complicated story.
But you wouldn’t hear about that as thousands in Hong Kong celebrated on Sunday the re-election of Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen of the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party, while waving American and British flags. They demanded universal suffrage for all legislative seats in the coming September election and threatened to call on foreign governments to sanction the city.