Hong Kong elections reform: a patriots-only game or circuit-breaker against radicalisation? The effect of Beijing’s plans on city’s opposing camps

Name: Two sessions: China’s parliament plans an overhaul of Hong Kong’s electoral system
Uploaded: 2021-03-06T00:00:16.000Z
Duration: 6 min 5 s
Description: Two sessions: China’s parliament plans an overhaul of Hong Kong’s electoral system

To some, the drastic changes highlight that Beijing loyalists now have the most important roles in local politics

While others say that decades of striving to improve democracy in Hong Kong has come to nothing

Reading Time:6 minutes

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Beijing’s plans to overhaul the electoral process in Hong Kong have taken both sides of the political divide by surprise. Photo: Dickson Lee

Lilian ChengandGary Cheung

Published: 8:00am, 6 Mar 2021Updated: 6:28pm, 9 Mar 2021

Beijing’s plans to overhaul Hong Kong’s electoral systems have caught the city’s opposition and pro-establishment figures by surprise, in different ways.

To some pro-Beijing analysts, the drastic changes – including adding 300 “patriotic voters” to the Election Committee that selects the chief executive and giving the committee the power to nominate candidates for Legislative Council elections – highlight that Beijing loyalists now have the most important roles in local politics.

But some local scholars expressed frustration that decades of striving to improve democracy in the city had come to nought. A former opposition lawmaker said it was clear Beijing no longer welcomed the opposition bloc’s participation in the city’s public offices.

Details of the momentous changes first emerged on Thursday night, after Xia Baolong, director of the State Council’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, met Hong Kong delegates to the National People’s Congress at a closed-door meeting.

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Two sessions: China’s parliament plans an overhaul of Hong Kong’s electoral system

Sources said Beijing planned to expand the Election Committee to 1,500 members by adding 300 voters, possibly including the city’s delegates to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and members of prominent mainland Chinese business, social and academic groups. That would create five sectors of voters within the committee. At the same time, 117 seats expected to go to opposition district councillors would be scrapped.

Lau Siu-kai, vice-president of the semi-official Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies, said Election Committee members were now the “most reliable patriots” Beijing would rely on to carry out reforms to choose the city’s leader and lawmakers.