China’s wariness of Hong Kong election exposes underlying strains

The vote is for a 70-seat legislative council in which Hong Kong’s pro-democracy Opposition is hoping to maintain a one-third veto bloc in the face of better mobilised and funded pro-Beijing rivals. The former British colony was handed back to China in 1997 under a ‘one country, two systems’ agreement that promised to maintain the global financial hub’s freedoms and separate laws for at least 50 years, but gave ultimate control to Beijing. 

A growing yearning for independence and animosity towards Beijing in the southern coastal city pose one of the central government’s most pressing domestic political issues. The stakes for Beijing are particularly high this weekend as G20 leaders gather in the eastern city of Hangzhou for a summit. Hong Kong’s opposition now controls 27 of the legislature’s 70 seats, giving it the power to block policies and some laws including legislation it sees as eroding freedoms. Some 3.8 million of Hong Kong’s seven million people are eligible to vote and the result is due early on Monday. It will give an indication of anti-China sentiment some two years after tens of thousands took to Hong Kong streets to demand full democracy from China’s Communist Party leaders.

 A younger generation of voters who joined those protests is openly advocating independence — a push some people warn could jeopardise Hong Kong’s economic and political future. China’s stability-obsessed leaders have categorically rejected any possibility of independence. Hong Kong officials are generally supportive of Beijing and keen to preserve ‘one country, two systems’, though confidence in China’s commitment to the formula has been shaken by recent incidents including the abduction of several Hong Kong booksellers by Chinese agents.