Beijing launches another attack against Hong Kong democracy
Beijing (AsiaNews/SCMP) Mainland China has launched another attack against universal suffrage in Hong Kong despite it being provided for in the Basic Law. Mainland legal experts met yesterday at a seminar on Hong Kong's Basic law, highlighting six shortcomings that prevent the autonomous region from fully implementing universal suffrage.
First, according to the so-called 'guardians' of the Basic Law, there is no "national security legislation as required by Article 23 of the Basic Law", which would allow troops from the mainland to enter the Territory. A draft bill was shelved in 2003 after more than 500,000 people took to the streets to oppose it.
For Wang Zhenmin, deputy dean of Tsinghua University's law school, consensus among various sectors of the community was essential, and the consensus must be endorsed by the central government.
Another sign Hong Kong was not ready for universal suffrage was the lack of civic education to inspire patriotism, an issue reiterated by Xu Chongde, who believes that universal suffrage could be implemented only when it could be guaranteed that patriots would be selected to be the political leaders.
"If anyone today could ensure that the [chief executive] selected through universal suffrage is a patriot, then I would suggest introducing universal suffrage today," he said.
To prove his point, Professor Xu said that "Hitler and Mussolini had come to power through elections" and "[e]ven in the United States, which has 200 years of democratic history, most of its presidents were only of mediocre calibre."
In his opinion, "Hong Kong's Democratic Party was misleading Hong Kong people through 'blind worship of universal suffrage', which was 'just one kind of democracy'.
The other three conditions that must be met before universal suffrage can be implemented were not disclosed but will be tabled before Hong Kong Legislative Council which will examine them.
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