Hong Kong voters ‘risked their autonomy’ by voting against pro-Beijing candidates, warns influential mainland commentator
- Ren Yi says the city opened a ‘Pandora’s box’ with Sunday’s landslide for pro-democracy candidates in the district council elections
- The analyst, who writes under the pen name Chairman Rabbit, is generally seen as closely aligned to Beijing’s stance on the city and its protest movement
Hong Kong voters have opened a “Pandora’s box” that may ultimately put the city’s autonomy at risk by handing a landslide victory to the pro-democracy camp in the district council election, an influential mainland commentator has warned.
Ren Yi, a graduate from Harvard University’s John Kennedy School of Government, wrote that Hong Kong would “pay the price of arrogance” if the city continues to push for a “decoupling” from the mainland.
Ren warned that the more the city “refuses to accept [or] challenges China’s sovereignty and political order … the less political power it will enjoy and increase the chance that it could even lose its autonomy”.
He said that this loss of autonomy could “in theory” happen before 2047 – the 50th anniversary of the handover from British rule.
Beijing has pledged to maintain the city’s “capitalist system and way of life” for this period of time under the terms of the handover.