HK clears Beijing’s overhaul of electoral law

HONG KONG/BEIJING: Hong Kong’s legislature on Thursday passed a bill amending electoral laws that drastically reduces the public’s ability to vote and increases the number of pro-Beijing lawmakers making decisions for the city.

The new law empowers the city’s national security department to check the backgrounds of potential candidates for public office and a sets up a new committee to ensure candidates are “patriotic”.

The number of seats in Hong Kong’s legislature will be expanded to 90, with 40 of them elected by a largely pro-Beijing election committee. The number of legislators elected directly by Hong Kong voters will be cut to 20, from the previous 35.

The bill, passed by a 40-2 vote, was met with little opposition, as most of the legislators are largely pro-Beijing. Their pro-democracy colleagues resigned en masse last year in protest over the ousting of four lawmakers deemed to be insufficiently loyal to Beijing.

Pro-Beijing lawmakers lauded the bill during the debate on Wednesday and Thursday, saying that reforms would prevent those not loyal to Hong Kong from running for office.

China keeps Oz diplomat out of espionage trial

China firmly rejects Canberra’s attempts to intervene in the trial of detained Australian writer Yang Hengjun, the foreign ministry said on Thursday, hours after the Australian envoy was denied entry inside a Beijing court where the author’s case was being heard.

Graham Fletcher, the Australian ambassador to China, was stopped from entering the heavily-guarded Beijing No 2 Intermediate People’s Court as the court began hearing Yang’s case.

The high profile trial of Yang, 56, an Australian-Chinese writer charged with espionage by China, started on Thursday, two years after he was picked up from an airport by Chinese authorities. A popular blogger, Yang had written spy novels until he was picked up from Guangzhou airport in 2019.

Yang faces a possible death sentence if found guilty of having “endangered national security” while the minimum sentence is three years.

“Unfortunately, we have just been denied entry to the court.

The reason given was because of the pandemic situation but the foreign ministry has also told us it is because it is a national security case therefore, we are not permitted to attend it,” agency reports quoted Ambassador Fletcher as saying outside the court. “This is deeply regrettable and concerning and unsatisfactory. We have had long standing concerns about this case, including lack of transparency, and therefore have concluded it is an instance of arbitrary detention,” he said.