{"id":47023,"date":"2015-05-09T22:54:00","date_gmt":"2015-05-09T22:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1:10081\/?p=47023 "},"modified":"2015-05-09T22:54:00","modified_gmt":"2015-05-09T22:54:00","slug":"47023-revision-v1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/?p=47023","title":{"rendered":"US Lawmaker Urges Rejection of Proposed Hong Kong Voting Rules"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><\/div><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mzzg.org\/UploadCenter\/ArticlePics\/2015\/19\/2015594FD77CFB-FDDD-42EA-B18E-21B273A041EF_w640_r1_s_cx0_cy6_cw0.jpg\" alt=\"2015594FD77CFB-FDDD-42EA-B18E-21B273A041EF_w640_r1_s_cx0_cy6_cw0.jpg (640&#215;360)\" \/><\/div><div>U.S. Republican Representative Chris Smith of New Jersey speaks to VOA after a U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China hearing in Washington, April 30, 2015. (M. Lipin\/VOA)<\/div><div><\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>May 09, 2015 6:36 PM<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>A U.S. lawmaker is encouraging Hong Kong legislators to veto electoral rules proposed by Beijing.<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>In a recent interview with VOA, New Jersey Republican Representative Chris Smith said he supports a threat by Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmakers to block the Beijing-backed reforms, which would allow all voters in the autonomous Chinese territory to choose their chief executive for the first time in 2017, but only from a limited pool of candidates.<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>The 27 pro-democracy lawmakers in Hong Kong&#8217;s 70-seat Legislative Council, or Legco, have said the reforms do not give voters a &#8220;genuine&#8221; choice of leaders and have vowed to prevent the package from securing two-thirds Legco approval, a threshold required for it to become law.<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>Hong Kong&#8217;s No. 2 official, Carrie Lam, said last week that the city&#8217;s election system could be reformed further, but only if Legco first allowed the current proposals to take effect for the 2017 chief executive race.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>Smith encouraged the pro-democracy lawmakers to remain steadfast.<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>&#8220;The history of pro-democracy movements, whether in Eastern Europe or in Asia, has shown that you can&#8217;t accept a bad deal in the hopes that someday a better deal will emerge,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s not going to happen. The Hong Kong people have got to be very wary of that kind of offer.&#8221;<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>Certifying autonomy<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>Smith said the bill that he authored last November and reintroduced in February is designed to help Hong Kong people get a &#8220;better deal&#8221; in terms of their electoral system. &nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act &nbsp;calls for the U.S. secretary of state to prove that Hong Kong is &#8220;sufficiently autonomous&#8221; from Beijing to deserve ongoing special ties to the United States, separate from U.S.-China relations as a whole.<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>Smith and other U.S. lawmakers see Beijing&#8217;s proposed restrictions on Hong Kong elections as a violation of its pledge to Britain to grant Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy after 1997.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>Without annual U.S. reviews of that pledge, Smith said, Hong Kong&#8217;s human rights will deteriorate in the same way as those of mainland China after the United States stopped annual reviews of Beijing&#8217;s most-favored-nation trade status in 2001.<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><\/div><div><a href=\"http:\/\/www.voanews.com\/content\/lawmaker-urges-hong-kong-block-beijing-backed-rules\/2761739.html\">For detail please visit here<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&lt;div&gt;The 27 pro-democracy lawmakers in Hong Kong&amp;#8217;s 70-seat Legislative Council, or Legco, have said the reforms do not give voters a &amp;#8220;genuine&amp;#8221; choice of leaders and have vowed to prevent the package from securing two-thirds Legco approval, a threshold required for it to become law.&lt;\/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;\/div&gt;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ChinaHumanRights","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47023\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}