EDITORIAL - A sad day for Hong Kong

As of this writing yesterday, Hong Kong is expected to approve new changes to its voting laws.

Among others, one of these changes is to limit the amount of lawmakers Hong Kongers can vote from 35 down to 20. It also brings up the number of seats in Hong Kong's legislature to 90, with 40 of them to be elected only by a government committee.

No surprise, these changes are being pushed for by Beijing, which called for them last March. No doubt the objective is to establish a controlling majority in the Hong Kong parliament that can no longer be challenged by lawmakers leaning toward pro-democracy reforms, as well allow the parliament to easily pass any laws foisted upon it by the Chinese Communist Party.

This is only the latest in a series of moves imposed by Beijing to exert more control over the territory, July last year the Hong Kong government approved a security law that was designed more to enable authorities to go after government critics than to protect the territory from actual threats.

The immediate result was the arrest of many pro-democracy campaigners and the flight of others abroad to seek asylum. It even affected those who are not active in the pro-democracy campaign, with many low-profile Hong Kongers deleting their own social media accounts, or any platform where they might have voiced opinions opposed to the government, to avoid getting in trouble.

However, this latest move to limit the voting power of Hong Kongers, who are more receptive to democracy than the communism, may be the most devastating move yet. The authorities have just severely limited the power of the people to choose whom to represent them.

The ironic twist is that they appear to be using a democratic exercise to actually curtail reforms for democracy itself.

For now the writing on the wall is that Hong Kong, having already lost its status as a preferred economic haven in the region following the pro-democracy riots and the passing of the security law, will only slide down to even more pro-socialist reforms until it can only be labeled as just another part of China.

Not all may be lost. If Hong Kong is known for one thing it’s for being able to reinvent itself. It has done so for decades. But considering how difficult it will soon be to implement social changes in that territory, how that will happen after all that has happened remains a question.