Thank you for inviting the Hong Kong Democratic Foundation.

I'm a graduate of Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada, so I am particularly pleased to update the standing committee on the latest situation in Hong Kong.

The first point is on the current situation. There's really no good news to report. The proposed 2017 election reform is widely expected to fail. The bill is unlikely to get the two-thirds majority needed. It's really unfortunate that Hong Kong and Beijing cannot come to an agreement. It is unclear, if this proposal is rejected, how long we will have to wait before further reform for universal suffrage can be restarted under the basic law.

This disagreement is not good for Hong Kong. The consequences are that the political uncertainty that has been troubling Hong Kong for more than 30 years will remain unresolved, Occupy Central or street protest in one form or another will continue, and business confidence in Hong Kong will drop. This is not a good outcome for Hong Kong, for China, or for international interests, particularly business interests, in Hong Kong, and the worst case scenario could even be a script for the beginning of the end of Hong Kong.

What the pan-democrats want is fairly simple, straightforward, and easy to explain to a Western mind. They want genuine universal suffrage with no unreasonable restrictions on the nomination and election process, with a particular focus on no unreasonable screening on the nomination. What's being offered with this bill that has been tabled by the government falls short of this expectation. The government's proposal is a big step forward on the election process—one man, one vote—but a big step backward on the nomination process.

There'll be no TV debate for the pan-democrats this time. They wouldn't be nominated under the current proposal. It is widely expected that, once the bill is passed, there will be little room for reform in the future.

The pan-democrats, however, were not very good at communicating their objection. The advocacy of a total rejection of the 8.31, August 31, decision of the Standing Committee of the NPC is perceived as venomous attack and a rejection of China's sovereignty over Hong Kong—this is the perception coming from Beijing. The pan-democrats also made the mistake of not taking the “national security” of Beijing into consideration in their counter-argument.

From my assessment, what the central government in Beijing wants is that they genuinely—but in an ambiguous way—want the chief executive election proposal to pass. But, as the previous speakers mentioned, they will not give up national security concern as framed by the 8.31 NPC SC decision.

From the experience of the 2012 election by an election committee that will become the nomination committee, conservative forces in Beijing also felt that the chief executive candidates, once nominated, could not be controlled, not even in 2012, by Beijing. So the current one person, one vote proposal, which is sort of promoted as universal suffrage, is indeed a big step forward already and ought to be welcomed by people like me with open arms. Such thinking leads to a conclusion that allowing approved candidates to run in a "universal suffrage" election, almost like the Iranian presidential election system, is the maximum risk that the central government seems to be willing to take for now.

As for the strategy used by the pro-establishment camp to get the bill passed, the pro-establishment camp is prepared to influence or even twist public opinion to pocket the proposal. This is the so-called “pocket it first” strategy. The current strategy is to try to steal four or five votes to get it passed in the current form.

Trying to twist public opinion in this way is really an impossible task. The free press in Hong Kong is already publishing public opinion polls that are more intellectually honest.

In private meetings with foreign consul staff, senior constitutional reform officials in Hong Kong also expressed pessimism about getting the bill passed.

If the bill is passed in its current form by a margin of one vote, the result is not going to be any better. Hong Kong will still be in a very bad mood in July. Approximately 40% of the population, particularly the younger generation, will still feel disenfranchised and betrayed. This is why Occupy Central will keep coming back in one form or another.

As for the influence of the Canadian government, unfortunately, the Canadian government can't really help us because any open criticism of the Chinese government will be regarded as bad foreign influence and meddling in the internal affairs of China. Such meddling could even trigger tighter restrictions on the chief executive election nomination process.

At this moment, the only answer is for Hong Kong to come to an agreement with Beijing on its own about building a wide community consensus on a proposal that allows as close to universal suffrage as possible under the 8.31 NPC-SC decision, such as a joint nomination by the nomination committee and the Legislative Council. It makes it 50% approval of the entire list, but such a proposal is not considered by either side.

There is an optimistic note after painting a gloomy picture. I was told by a Canadian once posted in Hong Kong that the Canadian embassy in Beijing sometimes helps the Chinese government interpret what the Americans say to them. I suppose this is happening because the Chinese government finds it useful to get help to interpret the subtle language or cultural difference between the American and the Chinese. I imagine these things happen behind closed doors, and what was said would never be disclosed to the South China Morning Post.

A senior U.S. diplomat who once spoke at the Hong Kong Democratic Foundation—I think Dalena knows this person well—said to us that if Mikhail Gorbachev had a little piece of Hong Kong, the reform and opening of the Soviet Union could have been more successful.

On the situation in Hong Kong, it is still possible—we don't know yet, because nothing is happening yet—that Beijing may be willing to take a little bit more risk and turn the current “one person, one vote” proposal into genuine universal suffrage that conforms to the 8.31 NPC-SC decision. The outcome would be very different for Hong Kong in July, and for China's reform and opening journey just a little bit down the road.

Thank you.

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