Beijing has foisted one more chief government on Hong Kong, this time a hardline cop. Since 1997 with the appointment of businessman CH Tung, not one single chief government has survived a full two phrases.
That should be a lesson to the laborious males in Beijing that it may need been wiser to watch the promise of free elections enshrined within the Primary Regulation promulgated between Margaret Thatcher and Deng Xiaoping. China’s leaders don’t take to classes from outdoors.
Two of Asia Sentinel’s correspondents wrote completely different views on John Lee’s appointment.
As soon as Once more, Beijing Picks Hong Kong’s New Chief
What might probably go improper?
By: Tim Hamlett
Properly, you need to say one factor about Hong Kong’s means of selecting a brand new chief government: it is fast. Nominations opened on Sunday and it’s already throughout. Barring some critical accident or sickness, the subsequent CE would be the present Chief Secretary, John Lee Ka-chiu.
For the reason that election “reforms” imposed unilaterally by Beijing final 12 months, the CE is “elected” by an Election Committee. It is a revamped model of the previous system, through which the Election Committee was shaped by means of a wide range of elections and ex officio members.
The revised model has been purged of unreliable components. There are actually 5 sectors, every with 300 members. One in every of them consists solely of nominees of the Beijing or Hong Kong governments. Anybody wishing to run should acquire 188 nominations, together with at the least 15 members from every sector.
That is, and was meant to be, a system open to manipulation by the native representatives of the Beijing authorities, and certainly no effort has been made to hide the workings of the system. Lee’s expression of his intention to resign from his current submit and run for Chief Government was carefully adopted by a gathering on the Liaison Workplace (China’s de facto imperial HQ in Hong Kong) attended by chosen Election Committee bigwigs, who all emerged lauding Mr. Lee’s many virtues and pledging to vote for him…
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Beijing’s Instability Issues Drive Hong Kong Exec Choose
John Lee to be chief government as arrests proceed, spurring fears of police state
By: Our Correspondent
The Chinese language authorities picked ex-cop John Lee as Hong Kong’s subsequent chief government out of continuous concern over attainable political unrest, analysts say. Lee, the present chief secretary, was beforehand a safety secretary who oversaw the arrests of over 100 individuals and the closure of media like Apple Day by day below the Nationwide Safety Regulation.
“John Lee’s appointment reveals Beijing’s insecurity in Hong Kong’s stability associated to geopolitical circumstances within the close to future,” a political analyst informed Asia Sentinel.
The Chinese language authorities additionally fears China may probably face US sanctions attributable to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the analyst stated, which might trigger collateral injury in Hong Kong because it’s a world monetary hug serving the Chinese language capital in Beijing, the analyst stated.
On April 6, US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman warned that sanctions imposed by the US and its allies on Russia for invading Ukraine ought to give China a “good understanding” of the results it might face if it supplies materials assist to Moscow…
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