Inscrutable Chinamen Fail in Bid to Oppress Inscrutable Chinamen

The results of the Hong Kong legislative elections have just come out, and the news is good, if varied: between 22 to 24 of the 60 seats have been assigned to the pro-democracy camp of Hong Kong parties, meaning they retain veto power in most legislative procedure, where a 2/3s majority is needed.

This was by no means a certain thing. Beijing was thought to have closed the debate on democracy in Hong Kong by promising universal suffrage by 2017 'at the earliest'. Hong Kong's economic troubles have been a salient issue, with inflation passing 6% and growth slowing down. This has drawn much attention away from the issue of democratic and political autonomy. Apparently this was not enough for the pragmatic and independent Hong Kongites, though, who voted overwhelmingly for pro-democracy parties (only 30 out of the 60 seats were actually up for election).

It could be that the citizens of Hong Kong, long accustomed to the liberal governance of Britain, are unwilling to relinquish the political and social benefits they gained during their period of colonisation. It could be that they consider themselves a different breed to Mainland Chinese, and want to retain autonomy from them. They could still be smarting from the ill-fated attempt on the part of the Beijing Olympic Council to recruit its paralympic team entirely from healthy Hong Kong citizens. Whatever the case may be, Hong Kong citizens have weathered another election clinging to the scraps of their autonomy.