ProBeijing panel granted power to pick lawmakers

BEIJING — A mostly proBeijing committee that elects Hong Kong’s leader will also choose a large part of the legislature, a top Chinese official announced Friday as part of a major overhaul that will increase central government control over Hong Kong politics.

The changes are part of a draft decision submitted on the opening day of the weeklong meeting of the National People’s Congress, China’s ceremonial legislature, which will all but certainly endorse it.

The Election Committee will participate in the nomination of candidates for Hong Kong’s legislature and also elect “a relatively large share” of its members, said Wang Chen, vice chairman of the

NPC Standing Committee.

He did not say how many legislators would be chosen by the committee. Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post newspaper, citing unidentified sources, said it would be 30 seats in an expanded 90seat legislature.

That would be a significant rollback of democracy in Hong Kong, a semiautonomous territory that has greater freedoms than mainland China but has seen them sharply cut back in the past year.

Currently, half of the city’s now 70member Legislative Council is directly elected by voters. The other half is elected by professional or special interest groups from sectors such as insurance and agriculture.

The draft changes came after the top Beijing official overseeing Hong Kong, Xia Baolong, declared that Hong Kong must be governed only by “patriots.”

The draft decision to revamp Hong Kong’s electoral system comes after Hong Kong’s prodemocracy movement gained traction in recent years as Beijing tightened its control over the city.

Prodemocracy supporters say Beijing’s increasing control over the city’s political system violates its pledge to give Hong Kong 50 years of autonomy under a “one country, two systems” framework when the city was handed over to China by the British in 1997.