In Beijing, the NPC and CPPCC “Two Sessions” of 2021 are currently underway. In the previous “Two Sessions” that took place in the year ended with the number “1” and “6,” the focus has always been the Five-Year Plan (FYP). This year, however, people are more concerned about Xi Jinping’s power consolidation and political succession as he faces the 100th anniversary of the founding of the CCP. Among them, “patriots governing Hong Kong,” which has been labeled “Hong Kong’s return 2.0,” is the main focus.

If the Hong Kong national security law (NSL) implemented last year, which gives Hong Kong government to conduct violent legal arrest, is the means Beijing uses to remove the democratic street protest space of the radical pan-democrats (“the valiant”) outside the system, then the suggestion of “patriots governing Hong Kong” would be the way to eliminate the opportunities of the moderate pan-democrats (“the rational”) for democratic participation within the system through a distorted election system. From the Hong Kong NSL to “patriots governing Hong Kong,” Beijing has ended the future of Hong Kong’s democratic development within a year.

Looking back at the glorious scenes of how Hong Kong pursued democracy in the past two years, the anti-ELAB movement has proved the vigorous vitality of Hong Kong street democracy, and the one-sided result of the district council election in the same year has displayed the Hongkongers’ determination to take back the power belongs to them within the democratic system. On the other hand, the anti-ELAB movement has spurred Beijing to act before the end of the Wuhan virus pandemic, when people can go onto the streets again, to ensure there will not be large-scale protest or color revolution, hence the launch of Hong Kong NSL. The district council election has shaken the confidence of Beijing and Hong Kong governments that they could be in power forever. Therefore Beijing is determined to restructure the political system before the Chief Executive election in 2022 so that no one can challenge the people in power. It is not an exaggeration to say that, from Hong Kong NSL to “patriots governing Hong Kong” is “the Avengers” of Beijing rallying to attack Hong Kong’s democracy.

The CCP knows the unspoken rule of struggle “if you can’t beat them, join them” very well. It is aware that the regime is in danger under the current Hong Kong election system, so it has to change the rule of the game completely to possibly reverse the losing situation since the district council election. The “Two Sessions” have not yet announced the content of the draft decision on improving the electoral system of Hong Kong, but from what Wang Chen, Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the NPC, said previously, we could roughly interpret that Beijing will apply “qualification filtering” and “seats diluting” to ensure Hong Kong’s regime not to be challenged.

In terms of “qualification filtering,” Beijing created the now well-known “patriots governing Hong Kong” slogan. It means those who participate in Hong Kong politics in the future must comply with the “three-loves principle” – love the country, love the party, love Hong Kong, the most important of which is, of course, “love the party.” How do we identify this qualification and filter those without it? The NPC has not yet published any details, but we could take some hints from earlier comments on the “negative list” from Xia Baolong, Director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office. Those who attack the central government by any means, criticize China and Hong Kong in the international society or plead to the foreign countries to apply sanctions on China and Hong Kong, etc. will probably not be qualified to participate in Hong Kong politics in the future.

In terms of “seats diluting,” Beijing has gone all out and designed a multi-layer safety valve to prevent the “non-patriots” from joining LegCo and the Chief Executive election. According to Wang Chen, Beijing will “adjust and improve the composition and formation methods of Hong Kong’s election committee, which will continue to be in charge of electing the Chief Executive, and will be granted to elect a larger proportion of LegCo members and have direct nominations.” It means the key operation on “seats diluting” will be the formation and operation of the Hong Kong Election Committee (HKEC).

The District Councils (DC) have become the biggest obstacles of the CCP and Hong Kong government. Out of 1200 seats in the HKEC, DC get 117, which are occupied by internal election. When the pro-democratic parties took 80% of the seats in the DC election in 2019, it was predicted that all 117 HKEC seats will be taken by pro-democratic district councilors. Therefore Beijing has already indicated that it will redefine DC as a “non-political organization” and therefore not eligible to participate in the HKEC.

At present, all 70 lawmakers of the LegCo are ex officio members of the HKEC. So Beijing plans to expand the number from 70 seats, which consists of 35 (including five super seats) directly elected by people, and 35 elected through functional constituencies, to 90 seats. Through the expansion, the influence from the people elected lawmakers will be diluted. The current rumor said that there would be 30 people-elected seats, 30 from functional constituencies, and the remaining 30 selected from the HKEC. This system has been designed to guarantee the pro-Beijing camp more than 2/3 of the seats to kill off the possibility of the pro-democracy camp promoting political reform plans via LegCo. But Beijing is not satisfied. It also wants to change the current proportional representation system to a double-seat single-vote system.

In other words, there will be two people elected seats in each district in the future, and the two candidates with the highest number of votes will take the seats. As the distribution of the votes between pan-democrats and pro-Beijing is approximately in a 6:4 ratio, mostly pan-democrats will get one seat per district. It means the pan-democrats won’t even get over half of the people elected seats. Using an election system like that to get rid of the opposition is definitely unique and shocking.

Finally, it’s the Chief Executive election’s turn. Beijing painstakingly designed “qualification filtering” and “seats diluting” that can basically prevent any “accident” in the Chief Executive election from happening. But the above analysis shows that the key will be the formation of the HKEC. So Beijing uses its old trick and will expand the committee from 1200 members to 1500. The newly added 300 members will be from five new “patriotic” categories such as CPPCC members, leaders of patriotic groups, representatives from pro-Beijing organizations, etc. That way, Beijing can guarantee the large majority of the HKEC will understand and adhere to its wishes.

“Qualification filtering” allows Beijing has the right to determine what makes someone a “patriot.” Today you could be elected, but tomorrow it can disqualify you. “Seats diluting” helps Beijing to disguise an appointment system as a CCP-controlled election system. The biggest victim in this “double-lock system” will be Hong Kong’s moderate pan-democrats, who advocated “local surround central” within the system. The only options the moderate pan-democrats have now are to join the “patriots” to extend their political lives or become the new blood of the system bashing “the valiant.” Either way, we can be sure the “patriots” have already rung the death knell of Hong Kong’s democracy.

(Wang Chih-sheng, Secretary-General, Association of Chinese Elite Leadership)

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