Beijing: Hong Kong's newly-elected breed of pro-democracy legislators have used the legislature's opening session to stage symbolic protests, unfurling banners and distorting parliamentary oaths in open defiance of Beijing.

Localists Yau Wai-ching and Sixtus "Baggio" Leung were ordered to return to their seats after displaying banners reading "Hong Kong is not China" and appearing to insert expletives and insults while deliberately mispronouncing the country's name.

The pair is among six young pro-democracy political newcomers voted into office at last month's fiercely-contested legislative council elections. Reflecting the city's hardening divide over creeping Communist Party influence – and posing a headache both for Beijing and Hong Kong leader Leung Chun-ying – the vote saw a significant swell in support for radical newcomers advocating for greater autonomy or even independence from China, especially among Hong Kong's younger demographic.

As members of the 70-member legislative council were sworn in one by one, a succession of independence-leaning or pro-democracy legislators baulked at delivering the parliamentary oath, which pledges to uphold Hong Kong's de facto constitution, the Basic Law, which recognises the special administrative region as an inalienable part of the People's Republic of China.