The National People’s Congress (NPC) handed down a decision to “reform” Hong Kong’s electoral system last Thursday, effectively bending election rules to espouse the ’'patriots governing Hong Kong’' policy and establishing other necessary means Beijing desperately needed for its dictatorial rule in the former British colony. Much like the national security law enacted just eight months ago, the NPC decision was drafted, discussed and passed entirely behind closed doors in Beijing during the annual meetings of the NPC and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), colloquially referred to as “two sessions.” This year’s “two sessions” is unique in that it precedes the centennial anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party in July by just a few months. Because of the festive timing, presumably only matters of the highest political urgency deserve the rubber-stamp parliament’s timely attention. Admittedly, fixing Hong Kong’s electoral system once and for all is one of those matters.

The electoral “reform” masterminded by Beijing is said to help Hong Kong regain the health of its democratic system. Under the NPC decision, a candidate qualification committee will be created to screen individuals who aspire to contest for elections of the city’s key posts such as Chief Executive and Legislative Council members. According to NPC Standing Committee member Tam Yiu-chung, the Beijing-controlled vetting committee is expected to assess prospective candidates’ eligibility by virtue of their past conducts, and those intended to provoke trouble, overthrow or subvert the government would definitely be disqualified from standing for election. This vetting procedure with “Hong Kong characteristics” is conceptually identical to, as pointed out by other commentators, Iran’s electoral exclusion mechanism for its parliamentary and presidential elections, whose prospective candidates have to first receive blessings from a small group of religious jurists controlled by the country’s Supreme Leader. By exercising his mighty veto power, the Supreme Leader can strategically manipulate Iran’s electoral process to the best of his advantage.

Aside from institutionalizing a disqualification apparatus, the NPC decision also requires the Legislative Council to increase the number of seats from 70 to 90, and the Election Committee responsible for selecting Chief Executive from 1,200 to 1,500. While it is still unclear as to how those added seats would be allocated, no one would be surprised if they all go to pro-Beijing loyalists, including those from the NPC, the CPPCC and the newly-founded Bauhinia Party led by mainland Chinese expatriates. After all, what Beijing really wants is to regain its upper hand over Hong Kong’s democratic system.

Few may have noted that this year marks the 30th anniversary of Hong Kong’s first ever direct election of the Legislative Council. Contrary to what China’s U.S. Ambassador Cui Tiankai recently claimed, democracy has never been “non-existent in Hong Kong during its 150-plus years of colonial rule”. Back in 1991, the Legislative Council consisted of 18 directly-elected members from geographical constituencies, 21 members from functional constituencies, 17 Governor-appointed members and 3 official members. Although I was not old enough to vote at the time, I still recall the televised scenes of elated voters lining up at poll stations all over Hong Kong. Notably, the pro-democracy camp claimed a whopping 16 of the 18 geographical constituency seats.

In many ways, the 1991 Legislative Council election bears considerable resemblance to the 2019 District Council election in which the present-day pro-democracy camp also scored a landslide victory over Beijing-backed candidates. One major difference between the two elections that span almost three decades is Beijing’s divergent reactions toward the outcomes from a genuine electoral system. Under Xi Jinping’s authoritarian dictatorship, electoral victories by opposing parties are perceived as malicious attempts to seize power and possibly to overthrow the regime. This distorted mentality can be inferred from a recent remark by Zhang Xiaoming, deputy director of the State Council’s Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office. “Hong Kong’s current problem has nothing to do with democracy or the pace of democracy,” Zhang explained, “but it is a contest between seizing and counter-seizing power, subversion and counter-subversion, and infiltration and counter-infiltration.”

Over the past few years, Hongkongers have witnessed a gradual decline in the quality of democracy and freedom. With the NPC decision deliberated, such decline has quickly turned into an abrupt descent at full throttle as Hong Kong’s democratic system instantly backtracks at least thirty years. What’s left behind the system is perhaps a flimsy façade fabricated by Beijing to fool others into believing that the “One Country, Two Systems” promise still exists.

(Dr Jack Kwan is a MIT-trained consultant based in Boston.)

We invite you to join the conversation by submitting columns to our opinion section: [email protected]

Apple Daily reserves the right to refuse, abridge, alter or edit guest opinion columns for accuracy, length, clarity, and style, and the right to withdraw and withhold columns based on the discretion of our editorial page editors.

The opinions of the writers do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editorial board.

---------------------------------

Apple Daily’s all-new English Edition is now available on the mobile app: bit.ly/2yMMfQE

To download the latest version,

iOS: bit.ly/AD_iOS

Android: bit.ly/AD_android

Or search Appledaily in App Store or Google Play