British Foreign Office Minister Hugo Swire said Hong Kong’s progress toward universal suffrage was “vital to its future stability” and that electoral reforms must offer voters a “genuine choice,” in remarks likely to anger Beijing.
China has promised the former British colony it will see a transition to universal suffrage by 2017, though critics say little or no progress has been made on the prickly issue as the deadline draws closer.
In an opinion piece published in the South China Morning Post yesterday, Swire said it was up to the governments of Hong Kong and China, and the people of Hong Kong, to decide what their model of democracy with universal suffrage would look like.
“There is no perfect model anywhere in the world, but the important thing is that the people of Hong Kong have a genuine choice to enable them to feel they have a real stake in the outcome,” said Swire, a minister of state at the British Foreign Office.
Debate over Hong Kong’s electoral reforms has revolved around how candidates will be chosen to stand for the 2017 chief executive election, with fears Beijing will restrict voters’ choices.
Current Hong Kong leader Leung Chun-ying (梁振英), who is charged with overseeing the transition, was voted into office in March last year by a committee composed of just 1,200 of the territory’s 7 million people, mainly Hong Kong’s pro-mainland business elite.
Even if the elections are held as promised, the pro-reform lobby fears Beijing will try to weaken the influence of the feisty pro-democracy camp, which has dominated previous legislative elections.
Laying out his views on why “the transition to universal suffrage is in the best interests of Hong Kong, and vital to its future stability and prosperity,” Swire said: “Britain stands ready to support in any way we can.”
He added that certainty over Hong Kong’s constitutional future was important to business and investor confidence in the city, which is home to about 1,000 British businesses.
His comments are likely to irritate Beijing, which last month accused Washington’s consul general in Hong Kong, Clifford Hart, of meddling in China’s internal affairs after he made similar remarks on looking forward to “progress toward genuine universal suffrage.”
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
One person was killed and another seven injured today when a tourist shuttle bus plunged 30m to 40m down a ravine in Nantou County, the Tourism Administration said. The bus is suspected to have suddenly accelerated out of control near the flower center of the Sun-Link-Sea Forest Recreation Area, a popular attraction during cherry blossom season. Of the eight onboard, a 66-year-old man was killed, four were seriously injured and three sustained minor injuries, including the driver. The Nantou County Police Department said it received a report of the incident at 12:15pm and dispatched seven teams to assist. All surviving passengers have been transferred
RSS