China is curbing the ability of democracy activists to win elections in Hong Kong, with local reports saying a vote for the territory’s legislature would be delayed another year to September 2022.
The National People’s Congress (NPC) will review a draft resolution on changes to Hong Kong’s electoral system in the coming days, according to an agenda published Thursday by the official Xinhua News Agency. For weeks Chinese President Xi Jinping and other officials have called for “patriots” to run Hong Kong, effectively signaling that anybody deemed disloyal to Beijing couldn’t hold a leadership position.
The action is Xi’s latest step to curb dissent in the former British colony following historically large and sometimes violent pro-democracy protests in 2019. The NPC imposed a sweeping national security law on the city last year and used it to arrest some 100 opposition figures, former lawmakers and activists, drawing criticism from business groups and sanctions from the US government.
“For years, anti-China forces seeking to disrupt Hong Kong have been colluding with external forces in an attempt to seize the jurisdiction over Hong Kong, with clear goals and concrete actions,” Xinhua said Friday regarding what China calls the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. “Effective measures must be taken to block these pawns of anti-China forces from being elected to HKSAR’s governance architecture, and knock them out once and for all.”
Read full article on BusinessMirror
