China 'has breached terms of Hong Kong handover'
China has breached an agreement set when Hong Kong was handed back, but there is little the UK can do about it, says head of foreign affairs committee
Britain is helpless to stop China from backtracking on promises of free elections in Hong Kong, the head of the foreign affairs committee has said, as activists in the city seemed to lose steam in their battle for democracy.
Sir Richard Ottaway spoke after Beijing set out surprisingly conservative terms for the election of Hong Kong's leader in 2017.
While Hong Kongers will each get a vote, the nomination of candidates will be controlled by a 1,200-strong election committee filled by pro-Beijing figures.
Pro-democracy lawmakers hold up a banner and signs during a protest in Hong Kong (Reuters)
The agreement struck by the UK and Hong Kong during the handover in 1997 "did call for universal suffrage in the election of the chief executive," said Sir Richard.
"And if you have a committee that is not neutral and is nominating a limited number of candidates, there seems to be a prima facie case that the undertakings given have been breached," he told the BBC.
Sir Richard is leading a parliamentary inquiry into Hong Kong's electoral reforms – to the irritation of Beijing, which has lambasted the process as "interference" in its domestic politics.
He admitted that Britain is in a "fairly weak position" to punish China with sanctions.
"Indeed, we were in a very weak position right from the beginning when this declaration was signed," he said.
While activists in Hong Kong initially promised an "era of civil disobedience" in response to Beijing's edict, it has not taken long for the wind to ebb from their sails.
On Tuesday, both of the leaders of the main Hong Kong protest movement, Occupy Central, which had previously promised to bring Asia's most important financial centre to a standstill, gave interviews suggesting the movement had ground to a halt.
Chan Kin-man told the Wall Street Journal that public support for Occupy Central is already weakening and that "many people in Hong Kong are being pragmatic". He added that he only expected a few thousand people to join a sit-in.
Benny Tai said Occupy Central would now choose a date which would not inconvenience the city's bankers and lawyers.
When business executives "know the details of when we will organise this event, they will know we have no intention to damage the economy of Hong Kong," he told Bloomberg.
"Even though I cannot mention the date, but if you look at the calendar, you would know which date would cause the minimal damage to Hong Kong's economy," he added.
Hong Kong has public holidays on September 9, and October 1 and 2.
Mr Tai added that he did not expect the movement would be able to change the "political reality" of China's ruling.
Nevertheless, eleven Hong Kong universities have promised to boycott classes for a week in mid-September and a group called Civic Passion, which staged a picket outside the hotel of the Beijing delegation and saw 19 members arrested, promised further action.
Beijing has marshalled considerable energy to defuse the democracy movement and intimidate its leaders.
It also emerged that the Hong Kong Economic Journal, a well-respected newspaper, has axed a weekly column by Edward Chin, a hedge fund manager who helped organise the Occupy movement.
Why do people why dispise corporate control ignore government tyranny?
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