Defiant Hong Kong opposition resigns
PRO-DEMOCRACY politicians in Hong Kong began resigning to protest against the expulsion of four other politicians, heightening a conflict with Beijing over the semiautonomous Chinese territory’s future.
Pro-democracy activists say China’s ruling Communist Party, which has tightened control in Hong Kong in response to demands for more democracy, is destroying the civil liberties and rights that were promised the territory when Britain returned it to China in 1997.
The 15 remaining politicians in the pro-democracy bloc said on Wednesday they will resign en masse after China’s central government passed a resolution this week that led to the four politicians’ disqualification.
The four had urged foreign governments to sanction China and Hong Kong over Beijing’s crackdown on dissent in the territory.
The Communist Party accused them of violating their oaths of office. Most of the 15 members did not attend a regular session of the legislature yesterday, and some later handed in resignation letters at the Legislative Council’s secretariat.
China sharply criticised the move. Its Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office called the mass resignation “an open challenge” to the authority of the central government and the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s constitution.
“If these politicians hope to use their resignation to provoke opposition and beg for foreign interference, they have miscalculated,” it said in a statement.
Wu Chi-wai, the head of the prodemocracy bloc, said the Chinese and Hong Kong governments were trying to take away the separation of powers in the city, since the ousting of the four members bypassed the courts.
“We lost our check-and-balance power, and all the constitutional power in Hong Kong rests in the chief executive’s hands,” Mr Wu said.
He said it was the end of the city’s “one country, two systems” framework under which Hong Kong enjoyed autonomy and freedoms not found on the mainland since it was returned to China in 1997.
Claudia Mo, a pro-democracy politician, said: “We are quitting the legislature only at this juncture.
“We’re not quitting Hong Kong’s democracy fight.”
Earlier in the day, one of the prodemocracy members, Lam Cheukting, unfurled a banner from a balcony inside the Legislative Council building saying city leader Carrie Lam had brought disaster to Hong Kong and its people, and that her infamy would last 10,000 years.
The mass departure will leave Hong Kong’s legislature with just 43 legislators, 41 of whom belong to the pro-beijing bloc. This means the legislature could pass bills favoured by Beijing with little opposition.