The statement issued by the G7 countries after the National People’s Congress, China’s top legislature, authorized its Standing Committee to amend Annex I and II to the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to improve the electoral system in the SAR is simply blatant interference in China’s internal affairs. It is therefore only natural it should be dismissed by the Chinese side. How to improve the electoral system in Hong Kong is purely China’s internal affair and brooks no external interference. So the statement issued jointly by the G7 foreign ministers and the European Union’s high representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy on Friday and an additional one issued by the foreign secretary of the United Kingdom on Saturday has simply put their motives under scrutiny. The statements brim with hypocrisy, prejudice and arrogance. Since Hong Kong’s return to the motherland, Hong Kong residents have enjoyed more extensive democratic rights than at any other time in history. The so-called concerns of the G7 members and the EU about the reforms to Hong Kong’s electoral system are characteristic of the West’s playbook, in which the claim the Western countries are the champions of democracy is nothing but a fig leaf for their meddling in the internal affairs of countries unwilling to be servile to them. It was with the covert support of neocolonialist Western countries that extreme localists seeking to undermine the SAR government jumped on the loopholes and deficiencies in the SAR’s electoral system. They sought to use the Legislative Council and the District Councils or their position as public servants to blatantly carry out destabilizing activities. With Hong Kong once again under the overall governance system of the country, the NPC has both the responsibility and power to fix the shortcomings that had been revealed in the SAR’s electoral system. This it has now done. The decision is in line with China’s Constitution and the Basic Law of the HKSAR as well as the principle of “patriots administering Hong Kong” and the continual betterment of the “one country, two systems” framework, under which Hong Kong enjoys a high degree of autonomy. The destabilizing radical localists in Hong Kong, backed by anti-China forces in Western countries, are the only factors damaging Hong Kong’s democracy and disrupting its social stability. Together with the national security law that was implemented in the SAR last year, the improvements to the electoral system will safeguard the SAR’s long-term prosperity and stability. Those trying to call them into question have only their own interests at heart, not those of Hong Kong or its residents.
–The Daily Mail-China Daily News Exchange Item
