Beijing accepts that several young pro-democracy “radicals” would be elected to Hong Kong’s Legislative Council in September, a Hong Kong newspaper cited a top Chinese official as saying, as tensions in the city over independence remain high.
Beijing’s refusal to grant the territory full democracy has embittered a younger generation of activists, which culminated in mass protests in 2014.
And political tensions remain, with a riot in the working-class neighborhood of Mong Kok last month and strong voter support for an activist leader who placed third in a legislative council by-election the same month.
“It will be normal that several radical young people will be returned as lawmakers [in September],” Feng Wei (馮巍), deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office in Beijing, told the South China Morning Post in an interview.
“Politics is the process of putting theories into practice. Young people participating in politics, including radicals, will gradually mature,” Feng said in the interview, which was seen to be the first interview given to Hong Kong media by a top Beijing official handling the territory’s affairs since the early 1990s.
Hong Kong is set to hold a full legislative council poll later in the year, pitting a pro-democracy camp that now enjoys a slender one-third veto bloc against pro-Beijing and pro-establishment parties.
Feng said the central government was “very concerned” about the rise of radicalism and was analyzing the reasons behind the phenomenon.
He said that the tendency of resorting to violence was notable in the Mong Kok riot.
“Perhaps in a certain period in future, this is a phenomenon, which will merit increasingly more of our attention, though this is something we do not want to see,” Feng said.
Hong Kong, a former British colony, returned to Chinese rule in 1997 under a “one country, two systems” formula that gives it a high degree of autonomy.
Feng said supporters of separatism and independence are a minority who do not represent the mainstream Hong Kong population, and he understands the frustrations of youths amid the city’s sluggish economic growth.
The median income has barely risen in the past two decades, while property prices had surged.
However, Feng said Beijing could improve communications with and understanding of Hong Kongers, and needed to learn to express its thoughts in a language Hong Kongers can comprehend and accept.
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