China’s top legislative body to begin finalising Hong Kong electoral overhaul, with observers expecting it to ‘go as far as it can’

China watchers, Beijing-friendly politicians and opposition figures all predict National People’s Congress Standing Committee will take a stringent approach

Though many details have yet to be unveiled, one analyst said he expected a watertight proposal: “They want to solve ‘the Hong Kong problems’ once and for all”

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A meeting of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee is expected to unveil more details of the changes to Hong Kong’s electoral system. Photo: AFP

Published: 5:12pm, 28 Mar 2021Updated: 10:13am, 29 Mar 2021

China’s top legislative body will start finalising details of the overhaul of Hong Kong’s electoral system on Monday, and it is expected to adopt the toughest options to fix the problems that Beijing has identified in enforcing the bottom line of allowing only “patriots” to run the city.

China watchers, Beijing-friendly politicians and opposition pan-democrats were expecting the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee to take a stringent approach, while Tam Yiu-chung, Hong Kong’s sole delegate to the apex body, said it was a matter of urgency for details to be sorted out by the end of the two-day session.

“We will only find out [the concrete proposals] during the meeting,” Tam said on Sunday, ahead of his trip to the capital for the meeting. “But this is also an urgent matter, because we have three elections coming up, and there are local laws to be amended. These are all interrelated.”

The Legislative Council, which is now effectively operating without an opposition, is expected to finish scrutinising the package of amendments by mid-July, so that polls for the Election Committee, Legco and chief executive can be held in September, December and March, respectively.

Tam noted that Hong Kong’s electoral reform was the only major item on the agenda for this week’s standing committee meeting, though it would also scrutinise Beijing’s latest appointments of mainland diplomats, judges and prosecutors.

Tam Yiu-chung, Hong Kong’s sole delegate to the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, said the body understood the urgent nature of the timetable posed by coming elections in the city. Photo: Handout

He added that four pro-establishment politicians – Basic Law Committee vice-chairwoman Maria Tam Wai-chu and NPC deputies Ma Fung-kwok, Wong Yuk-shan and Lo Sui-on – travelled with him to attend the meeting.

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