Beijing’s grip on Hong Kong set to tighten at National ­People’s Congress

Plan to ensure only ‘patriots’ can govern Hong Kong will include the creation of a committee to vet political candidates.

Hong Kong's Chief Executive Carrie Lam. Picture: AFP

Beijing’s plan to ensure only ­“patriots” can govern Hong Kong will include the creation of a committee to vet political candidates, according to a member of the city’s executive council.

Regina Ip, head of the pro-­establishment New People’s Party and a member of the council that advises Chief Executive Carrie Lam, told The Australian that reports of the ­imminent changes to Hong Kong’s electoral system were “largely correct”.

In addition to a vetting committee to eliminate candidates Beijing deems hostile, reports of sweeping changes to Hong Kong’s political system have flagged changes to the election process for Ms Lam’s successor.

Ms Ip said the National ­People’s Congress — China’s main legislative body, which meets from Friday — would soon pass a motion to formalise the “substantive changes” to ensure the city is run by people “Beijing can trust”.

“They asked us to give due ­respect to the nation, which is fair and reasonable,” she said. “They cannot afford to allow Hong Kong to fall into the hands of proxies of foreign powers or somebody they cannot work with.”

After years of protest in the former British colony, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s administration has been determined to impose its control on the key ­financial centre and home to 7.5 million people.

At last year’s congress — China’s biggest annual political meeting — Beijing surprised even the city’s delegates with a wide ranging national security law, which this week was used to charge 47 pro-democracy and pro-independence activists with “subversion”.

Bail hearings for the 47 opposition figures continued for a third day on Wednesday after triggering the first mass demonstrations in the city since the security was imposed last June.

The Chinese Communist Party’s most senior Hong Kong official, Xia Baolong, last week flagged more change was imminent for the city’s political system.

“There is a red line: one should never do anything that harms the country’s fundamental system; that is, to do something that harms the socialist system led by the Chinese Communist Party,” Mr Xia, the director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, said last week.

Opposition leaders expressed dismay at the changes.

“It totally destroys any hope for democracy in the future,” Lee Cheuk-yan, a pro-democracy former member of Hong Kong’s legislature told Reuters.

“The whole concept of Xia ­Baolong is that the Communist Party rules Hong Kong and only those that support the party can have any role,” he said.

Even some pro-Beijing figures in the city have expressed caution ahead of this week’s meeting.

“Don’t go too far and kill the patient,” said Shiu Sin-por, the former head of Hong Kong’s Central Policy Unit and former delegate at the Chinese Peoples’ Political Consultative Conference, the country’s key advisory body, which will also meet in Beijing from Thursday.

Hong Kong’s representatives at the key meetings in Beijing — called the Two Sessions — flew to China’s capital on Wednesday after receiving COVID-19 tests in Shenzhen.

As the city’s delegates were travelling, Hong Kong’s former leader, Leung Chun-ying, gave a speech that endorsed the imminent changes.

“We are not another Singapore,” Mr Leung said.

“In Hong Kong, by pushing on the democracy envelope too far, and by attempting to chip away the authority of Beijing in, for ­example, appointing the chief executive, many of the so-called democrats have become, in practice, separatists.”

Ms Ip said Beijing understood the city was different from the mainland. “Chinese leaders, whether Mr Deng Xiaoping or Xia Baolong, never said anything about requiring Hong Kong ­people to love the party,” she said.

Hong Kongers outside the government system would still be free to hold different views. “The patriotism requirement is confined only to those holding key positions in the government of Hong Kong,” she said.

Ms Ip recently called for curbs on dual citizenship in the city after countries including Australia, Britain and Canada offered new paths to citizenship for Hong Kongers. But she said it was unlikely any changes to dual citizenship would emerge from this week’s meeting in Beijing.

“I think they will continue to allow a lot of diversity and ­plurality in Hong Kong, outside the key government structure,” she said.