Special administrative regions of China

China continues to expand its influence over Hong Kong. An electoral law reform gives Beijing control over candidate selection in the Special Administrative Region's parliamentary elections, allowing it to exclude candidates who are not considered loyal.

President Xi Jinping ordered the publication of the electoral law change on Tuesday, the Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported. The changes to the Special Administrative Region's electoral system were approved by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, Tam Yiu-chung, Hong Kong's sole delegate, told the AFP news agency.

China's People's Congress had launched the amendment to the Special Administrative Region's electoral law in mid-March. It is intended to ensure that Hong Kong can only be run by "patriots". In this way, Beijing wants to gain control over the selection of candidates. Among other things, the Chinese leadership is to be given veto rights to be able to exclude certain candidates.

Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam has stated that "If this so-called primary election’s purpose is to achieve the ultimate goal of rejecting to, resisting every policy initiative of the Hong Kong SAR government, then it may fall into the category of subverting the state power" in regards to the pro-democracy camp’s primary election that happened over the past weekend. She added that coordinated efforts to subvert the state power is "is now one of the four types offences under the new national security law".

Despite a rising number of Covid-19 cases in Hong Kong over 600,000 citizens hat turned up to vote in the primaries. The result will be used as a reference for the selection of candidates of the democratic camp in five geographical constituencies of Hong Kong.