Demented Hamsters
28-04-2006, 07:21
In today's paper (The South China Morning Post) the front page article states that China doesn't want Hong Kong to have universal suffrage until several conditions are met.
no linky, sorry, as it expects you to pay for the privilege.
fyi, at present Hong Kong doesn't have universal suffrage. There are 60 seats on the Legislative Council (called LegCo for short), 30 of which are consituent seats, 30 are chosen by the PRC (Chinese govt). On top there is a Chief executive (CE), also appointed by the PRC. Thus, even if all the elected seats are won by anti-PRC parties, the best they can hope for is deadlock - except then the CE has the casting vote. So really they can't even hope for that.
Debate comes and goes regularly here over if/when universal suffrage (US) will be implemented.
Yesterday, top mainland law experts (with the blessing of the PRC) stated why Hong Kong can't have US yet.
Their reasoning would be hilarious if it wasn't such an important subject:
1. Article 23 of Basic Law hasn't been implemented.
This was a piece of legislation that was huriedly tried to push thru LegCo back in 2004 at the behest of the PRC. It stated that:
The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall enact laws on its own to prohibit any act of treason, secession, sedition, subversion against the PRC, or theft of state secrets, to prohibit foreign political organizations or bodies from conducting political activities in the Region, and to prohibit political organizations or bodies of the Region from establishing ties with foreign political organizations or bodies.
Public outrage over what was seen as interference by the PRC in HK law and possible (quite probable) erosion of free speech led to massive public protests - on July 1st, 2004 between 500000 and 1 million took to the streets to protest against the law. It was subsequently scrapped, annoying the hell out of the PRC.
First piece of irony - HK can't have democracy because the populace are overwhemingly against PRC interference in local laws and let the legislators know how they felt.
2. Universal suffrage should only be implemented when it can be guaranteed that Chinese patriots would be selected as the polictical leaders.
Irony #2 - HK can have a democracy only if it votes for people the PRC support. Yay! We can choose between two types of shit to eat!
3. No community consensus. The example for this is the defeat of an electoral reform package the Chief Executive presented to LegCo.
Irony #3 - Apparently, enough legislators from different polictical parties banding together and voting against a piece of legislation shows HK isn't ready for democracy.
Damn them! How dare they vote against something that a PRC appointed CE prersents! Proof that HK just doesn't understand democracy at all!
4. The USA has had 200 years of democracy and it still elects idiots.
True, but at least they get the chance to kick them out when they prove themselves to be idiots (or at the very least praise god for someone's far-sightedness in writing term limits into the constitution).
As far as I'm aware, the US wasn't totally screwed up by a paranoid megalomaniac deciding that sparrows are bad, slag iron is good and a potato can feed 100.
Irony #4 - America gets to choose the idiots running the country, which is bad. Therefore it's better to have another country choose what idiots run HK.
These are top lawmakers in China saying this. Not, as you might think utter idiots or just people extremely mordant.
no linky, sorry, as it expects you to pay for the privilege.
fyi, at present Hong Kong doesn't have universal suffrage. There are 60 seats on the Legislative Council (called LegCo for short), 30 of which are consituent seats, 30 are chosen by the PRC (Chinese govt). On top there is a Chief executive (CE), also appointed by the PRC. Thus, even if all the elected seats are won by anti-PRC parties, the best they can hope for is deadlock - except then the CE has the casting vote. So really they can't even hope for that.
Debate comes and goes regularly here over if/when universal suffrage (US) will be implemented.
Yesterday, top mainland law experts (with the blessing of the PRC) stated why Hong Kong can't have US yet.
Their reasoning would be hilarious if it wasn't such an important subject:
1. Article 23 of Basic Law hasn't been implemented.
This was a piece of legislation that was huriedly tried to push thru LegCo back in 2004 at the behest of the PRC. It stated that:
The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall enact laws on its own to prohibit any act of treason, secession, sedition, subversion against the PRC, or theft of state secrets, to prohibit foreign political organizations or bodies from conducting political activities in the Region, and to prohibit political organizations or bodies of the Region from establishing ties with foreign political organizations or bodies.
Public outrage over what was seen as interference by the PRC in HK law and possible (quite probable) erosion of free speech led to massive public protests - on July 1st, 2004 between 500000 and 1 million took to the streets to protest against the law. It was subsequently scrapped, annoying the hell out of the PRC.
First piece of irony - HK can't have democracy because the populace are overwhemingly against PRC interference in local laws and let the legislators know how they felt.
2. Universal suffrage should only be implemented when it can be guaranteed that Chinese patriots would be selected as the polictical leaders.
Irony #2 - HK can have a democracy only if it votes for people the PRC support. Yay! We can choose between two types of shit to eat!
3. No community consensus. The example for this is the defeat of an electoral reform package the Chief Executive presented to LegCo.
Irony #3 - Apparently, enough legislators from different polictical parties banding together and voting against a piece of legislation shows HK isn't ready for democracy.
Damn them! How dare they vote against something that a PRC appointed CE prersents! Proof that HK just doesn't understand democracy at all!
4. The USA has had 200 years of democracy and it still elects idiots.
True, but at least they get the chance to kick them out when they prove themselves to be idiots (or at the very least praise god for someone's far-sightedness in writing term limits into the constitution).
As far as I'm aware, the US wasn't totally screwed up by a paranoid megalomaniac deciding that sparrows are bad, slag iron is good and a potato can feed 100.
Irony #4 - America gets to choose the idiots running the country, which is bad. Therefore it's better to have another country choose what idiots run HK.
These are top lawmakers in China saying this. Not, as you might think utter idiots or just people extremely mordant.