On May 30, Hong Kong’s new chief executive, John Lee, was received by Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. Lee’s ascension came under Hong Kong’s new electoral system, adopted last May so that only candidates deemed loyal “patriots” to Beijing could participate. The promises were formalized by the Sino-British Joint Declaration, signed in 1984, and Beijing’s adoption of the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s quasi-constitutional governing document. The laws currently in force in Hong Kong will remain basically unchanged.”“The current social and economic systems in Hong Kong will remain unchanged, and so will the life-style,” paragraph 3 of the Joint Declaration says. The shift “signals the death of the ‘two systems,’” Eric Cheung, a legal scholar at the University of Hong Kong, told The Washington Post.

Source: Washington Post June 03, 2022 16:57 UTC