Hong Kong official ‘sickened’ by Wall Street Journal editorial calling Legislative Council poll ‘a sham’

Name: Pro-establishment bloc dominates Hong Kong Legislative Council after record-low turnout for election
Uploaded: 2021-12-24T12:32:25.000Z
Duration: 5 min 34 s
Description: Pro-establishment bloc dominates Hong Kong Legislative Council after record-low turnout for election

Erick Tsang writes second letter of complaint to New York-based daily demanding the correction of ‘inaccuracies’ about Hong Kong

Opinion piece titled ‘Democracy Boycott in Hong Kong’ published as pro-Beijing candidates fall just one seat short of clean Legco sweep

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Hong Kong’s first Legco poll since Beijing’s overhaul of its electoral system was held on Sunday. Photo: Sam Tsang

Natalie Wong

Published: 8:32pm, 24 Dec 2021Updated: 9:21pm, 24 Dec 2021

Hong Kong’s constitutional affairs minister has blasted The Wall Street Journal over an editorial describing Sunday’s legislative election as a “sham poll”, accusing the newspaper of “arrogance which knows no bounds”.

In his second strongly worded letter of complaint to its editor in a month, Erick Tsang Kwok-wai again demanded the New York-based international daily correct the “inaccuracies”.

“I am sickened by your biased and unsubstantiated editorials on Hong Kong issues and have given up hope that you will ever try to report accurately and fairly on Hong Kong,” Tsang said in a letter dated Thursday.

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Pro-establishment bloc dominates Hong Kong Legislative Council after record-low turnout for election

The opinion piece titled “Democracy Boycott in Hong Kong” was published on Monday, within hours of voting closing for the first citywide poll since Beijing’s overhaul of the electoral system.

The newspaper described the Legislative Council election as “a sham poll in which democratic candidates were blocked from running”, adding that “all candidates must receive Communist Party approval”.

Pro-Beijing candidates swept all of Legco’s 90 seats except the one taken by Tik Chi-yuen, the former vice-chairman of the Democratic Party who now leads the centrist outfit Third Side.

A key element of Beijing’s reforms was the establishment of a powerful vetting committee to ensure candidates were “patriots” and posed no threat to national security.

None of the major opposition parties fielded any candidates for the first time since the city’s return to China in 1997.