Senior state official Xia Baolong joins Shenzhen seminar to hear views on Hong Kong electoral reforms as part of push for ‘patriots governing city’

Name: Electoral system needs to change so patriots rule Hong Kong, Carrie Lam says
Uploaded: 2021-02-28T05:07:52.000Z
Duration: 1 min 32 s
Description: Electoral system needs to change so patriots rule Hong Kong, Carrie Lam says

Head of the State Council’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office attending two-day session to collect opinions from community, business and political sectors

Latest seminar comes days before the annual plenary talks of the state’s top political advisory body and legislature

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Xia Baolong, head of the HKMAO, has declared that ‘patriots’ should hold key positions in all three branches of the Hong Kong government – the executive, legislature and judiciary – as well as its statutory bodies. Photo: Imaginechina/ Wang Zhou

Ng Kang-chungandTony Cheung

Published: 1:07pm, 28 Feb 2021Updated: 12:46am, 10 Mar 2021

Top Beijing officials gathered in Shenzhen on Sunday for a high-powered seminar on ensuring “patriots govern Hong Kong”, during which a former president of the Legislative Council called for drastic reforms to shake up Hong Kong’s legislature and district councils.

The sweeping changes proposed by Rita Fan Hsu Lai-tai, also a former delegate to the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, include requiring candidates to obtain nominations from the Election Committee, a 1,200-member body dominated by pro-establishment business elites and community leaders, before running as lawmakers.

Sunday’s seminar was joined by Xia Baolong, head of the State Council’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, his deputy Zhang Xiaoming, and Luo Huining, director of Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong.

Phoenix TV reported that during the seminar, Xia said: “The important message that the central government has repeatedly expressed to Hong Kong is that ‘one country two systems’ will not change, not now, not in the future”.

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Electoral system needs to change so patriots rule Hong Kong, Carrie Lam says

Xia also said after more than 20 years of implementation, “one country, two systems” had proved to be a fit for China’s national development, and the situation in Hong Kong. The policy of “Hong Kong people governing Hong Kong” must be executed by patriots, he added.