Hong Kong parliament in chaos after China move
Hong Kong’s parliament has been plunged into turmoil as 19 prodemocracy politicians announced their resignations in protest at a decision by China to unseat four of their colleagues. It came hours after China’s ruling Communist Party granted Hong Kong officials sweeping powers to remove members deemed a threat to national security, including a refusal to acknowledge Chinese sovereignty over the city.
Authorities in Hong Kong said Dennis Kwok, Alvin Yeung, Kwok Kaki and Kenneth Leung would “lose their qualification as legislators immediately”.
Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s proBeijing leader, called the decision “legal, reasonable and necessary”. Members of the pro-democracy, antiBeijing camp disagreed. “We will resign from our positions because our partners, our colleagues are being disqualified by the central government’s ruthless move,” said Wu Chiwai, a pro-democracy legislator and chairman of the Democratic Party.
Once the resignations are accepted and take effect, Hong Kong’s 70-member legislative council will be reduced by about a third, with remaining members largely supportive of Beijing’s increasingly aggressive policies.
“In terms of legality and constitutionality, this is clearly in breach of basic law and our rights to participate in public affairs, and a failure to observe due process,” said Kwok, one of the ousted members. China has sought to wrest back complete control of Hong Kong, where liberties were meant to be guaranteed for 50 years after the former British colony was returned to Beijing in 1997. But efforts to exert greater influence and instill loyalty to the ruling party among Hong Kong people backfired, with a pro-democracy movement gaining traction and finally erupting in mass protests last year.
More than 10,000 people have been arrested in Hong Kong during pro-democracy protests from June 2019 to September this year.
In June, Beijing imposed a national security law criminalising behaviour deemed as subversion, secession, terrorism or foreign collusion, punishable by up to life in prison. Police have used the law to arrest people over social media posts and to stop activists seeking asylum overseas.