The House of Representatives of the US Congress on March 3 passed For the People Act of 2021. If the US Senate also approves it and if US President Joe Biden then signs it into law, the act will drastically revamp the federal voting system by clarifying regulations over early votes, removing rules that prevent voters from casting their ballots, limiting major campaign donors’ influence on American politics, and requiring all states to form an independent committee of their own to redraw constituencies according to the latest demographical data.
Two days later, on March 5, the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s top legislature, opened its annual session in Beijing, and its agenda of the day included the unveiling and explanation of the draft decision of the NPC on improving the electoral system of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR). While the legislatures of China and the US pursuing an electoral system reform almost simultaneously is just coincidence, the objective is the same — to fix the problems in the country’s or a region’s electoral system that must not be ignored anymore.
However, some talking heads in the US and other Western countries hostile to China are back at their double-standard mumbo-jumbo yet again, accusing China of jeopardizing Hong Kong’s democratic development while ignoring the fact that the For the People Act of 2021 also aims to make the US electoral system harder if not impossible to manipulate by political parties or individuals.
Truth is, many people in the West are well aware of what London was up to when it rushed a very limited version of representative democracy in Hong Kong before the signing of the Sino-British Joint Declaration in 1984. The move was designed to establish the Western political system in Hong Kong to counter Beijing’s influence after China resumed sovereign rule over the city. The UK government back then explained with no ambiguity the political reform was intended to nurture local political leaders capable of steering representative democracy in Hong Kong after 1997. It was not the first time Britain did this before “leaving” a colony in the postwar era. It was labeled “giving the governing power back to the people”, or the “chosen path”. By launching political reform in Hong Kong just before 1997, the British Empire was aiming to maintain its control of Hong Kong’s governing power by making sure its own proxies were put in key public offices through the electoral system it attempted to install.
The political reform launched by the UK government was meant to confront China’s sovereign rule over Hong Kong post-1997 with Western-style democracy. Although it was dressed as “decolonization”, the “chosen path” of Western-style democracy was in fact an attempt to keep Hong Kong as “removed” from China as possible.
Thus, it is not hard to understand why a national security legislation according to Article 23 of the Basic Law of the HKSAR has remained unfulfilled till this day, nearly 24 years after its return to China, while its constitutional development has been an extremely bumpy ride to say the least. In the Method for the Forming of the Legislative Council (LegCo) of the HKSAR in the year 2012, passed by the 11th NPC in 2010 and included in Annex III of the Basic Law, the central authorities basically adopted the Hong Kong Democratic Party’s (DP’s) suggestions, but the DP soon went back on its own words and refused to support the new voting arrangements. In 2014, all opposition parties and groups in Hong Kong joined the illegal campaign of “Occupy Central”. Then they vetoed in 2015 the Method for Selecting the Chief Executive by Universal Suffrage in 2017. Four years later, they ganged up with separatist forces in organizing violent riots for months on end in 2019, also known as the “black revolution”. Last summer, they held an illegal preliminary election, code-named “35-plus”, as the first step of a 10-step scheme to ultimately topple the HKSAR government. The illegal “primary”, not surprisingly, was overwhelmingly won by separatists. Had the NPC Standing Committee not promulgated the National Security Law for Hong Kong, which took effect on June 30, 2020, and immediately put an end to subversive activities in the HKSAR, Hong Kong residents would have no peace or safety today.
The National Security Law has established a solid foundation for Hong Kong to perform its obligations in safeguarding the sovereignty and national security of the country. It has also drawn a “red line” to distinguish what counts as a threat to national security of the PRC within the boundaries of the HKSAR. In order to ensure “patriots administrating Hong Kong”, however, the SAR must also improve its electoral system to prevent enemies of the nation from taking important public offices through loopholes in Hong Kong’s electoral system. It is safe to say the proposed electoral system reform will destroy London’s painstaking plan to counter China’s sovereign rule over Hong Kong with Western-style democracy designed to put its proxies in power.
The electoral system of a country or region must first suit the national or regional conditions, including political and socioeconomic systems. And the political system must serve the statehood, not the other way around. Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China and nothing more. Its constitutional status does not include a political system fit for a country or an electoral system copied from certain Western countries, because Western political systems do not suit its real conditions, or China’s for that matter. As a local administrative unit of China, the HKSAR’s political system, including its electoral system, must be fine-tuned to work harmoniously with the nation’s political system, including its electoral system.
The author is a senior research fellow of China Everbright Holdings.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.