Beijing Tightens Control of Hong Kong

Tung emphasized that the debate is an internal Chinese matter that should not be the subject of comment from abroad. The State Department declared last Friday that the United States "strongly supports" the goal of direct elections in Hong Kong, which elicited complaints from the Hong Kong government and the central government in Beijing.

Ip Kwok-him, vice chairman of the pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for Betterment of Hong Kong, described Tuesday's ruling as a fair platform for Hong Kong people to discuss future changes to their political arrangement. A Hong Kong member of the Standing Committee, Tsang Hin-chi, noted that political change had not been ruled out, only that it must be approved first in Beijing.

"It is very mild, very mild," Tsang told reporters in Beijing. "I hope those people would not oppose it, for the sake of the overall interests of the Hong Kong people."

But Audrey Eu, a Legislative Council member and election advocate, charged that the Standing Committee did not respect the letter and spirit of the Basic Law. Previously, she said, the law was understood to require that any reform be approved by two-thirds of the legislature, the chief executive and the Standing Committee, but not that the committee in Beijing had to give its prior approval.

"A barrier has been imposed. . . . This is not acceptable to us," Yeung of the Democracy Party said at a news conference.

The pro-democracy camp has sought direct elections to choose the chief executive for the next term, which begins in 2007. Tung was chosen by an 800-member committee appointed by Beijing.

According to Tuesday's ruling, the Basic Law would permit changes to the electoral system in 2007. But its stipulation that Beijing first approve any such proposal seemed to doom the idea from the start, in the view of analysts from both sides of the debate.

The reformers in Hong Kong also have proposed direct elections for the full Legislative Council in 2008. In the current 60-seat legislature, 24 seats were filled by direct elections and the rest were chosen by professional and labor groups. The number of seats to be filled by direct elections rises to 30 in the next vote, scheduled in September.

Since the massive demonstration last July, analysts from both camps had raised the possibility that democracy activists could win most of the 30 elected seats in September and gain enough support among professional representatives to form a two-thirds majority that could legislate political reform. That would have placed the Beijing government in the uncomfortable position of having to reject laws passed by a duly formed legislature. With Tuesday's ruling, however, the legislature cannot initiate election law reforms.

If democracy advocates could win a majority of legislative seats in September, though, they still might be able to block government legislation and force Beijing to negotiate with them. Pan reported from Beijing.