An election body that picks Hong Kong’s chief executive must be allowed to select more lawmakers for the local legislature than are elected by other means, a senior Beijing official has said.

The election committee’s powers are set to grow, to the extent of overriding the popular vote in legislative elections, according to Zhang Xiaoming, deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office under the State Council.

He was speaking on Wednesday at the end of a three-day forum conducted behind closed doors in Hong Kong over planned changes to the city’s electoral system. Last week, the rubber-stamp National People’s Congress passed a resolution during its annual plenary session to reform Hong Kong’s system of elections.

The election committee for the chief executive would receive new powers to select most of the members on Hong Kong’s Legislative Council, Zhang told the press.

“Many [attendants] have also suggested axing district councilors from the election committee or reducing [the number of their seats] drastically,” Zhang said, adding that he would submit those opinions to the NPC. The community-level representatives currently hold 117 seats in the 1,200-member committee.

Zhang said Hong Kong could not be allowed to be “hampered” by political issues or be manipulated by a very small number of anti-China elements, and that the economy and people’s livelihood could not be “kidnapped” by political interests.

The forum was jointly organized by Zhang’s office, Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong and the NPC Standing Committee’s Legislative Affairs Commission. More than 1,000 participants were invited, including executives from local media outlets TVB and i-Cable News, and 66 sessions were held over the three days, according to reports.

Meanwhile, Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen responded for the first time to Beijing’s shake-up of the Hong Kong election system. Beijing was stifling the right of Hongkongers to choose their own representatives, which would undoubtedly destroy its political commitment of “one country, two systems,” she said on Wednesday.

Taipei’s position on Hong Kong issues remained unchanged, Tsai said, calling on the international community to pay attention to the retrogression of democracy and freedoms in Hong Kong.

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