“No matter how the situation in Hong Kong changes, it is very clear that Hong Kong is a part of Chinese territory.”

Pro-Democracy protestors prevailed in Hong Kong this weekend, as its candidates decisively won nearly half of the seats on the ballot.

So far, pro-democracy candidates have won 269 out of 452 seats in 18 district council races, while pro-Beijing forces, who previously held 73 percent of the seats, have only won 30. Voters came out in droves — with a 71 percent turnout — up from 47 percent four years ago in the same elections, according to the Electoral Affairs Commission. “This is political annihilation for Beijing and it’s going to have consequences that are going to reverberate not just in Hong Kong itself, but perhaps in China as well,” Asia analyst and foreign affairs journalist Gordon Chang said on Fox News’ “America’s News HQ” Sunday.

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Initially, Beijing tried to brush aside the landslide defeat for the pro-establishment candidates by heavily censoring the results on the mainland.

State media preferred to focus on calls for law and order to be preserved and the accusation that Western countries had been instigating unrest. Many official media outlets only ran brief reports on the vote, with state news agency Xinhua declining to report the results, in which the pro-democracy camp took control of 17 out of 18 councils.

Then, the Chinese issued a stern warning to the city and its newly elected representatives.

China’s government has responded to a stunning landslide victory for pro-democracy candidates in the Hong Kong elections by emphasising that the city will always be ruled from Beijing, and warning against further protest violence. The foreign minister, Wang Yi, warned against “attempts to disrupt Hong Kong”, as a few hundred people took to the streets again in support of protesters holed up in a university that has been under siege by police for over a week. “No matter how the situation in Hong Kong changes, it is very clear that Hong Kong is a part of Chinese territory,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Tokyo. “Any attempts to disrupt Hong Kong or undermine its stability and prosperity will not succeed.”

We will have to see if the ballot is stronger than the bullet…or the tank.

Election day in Hong Kong. Long queues at polling stations and some interesting graffiti, eg. pic.twitter.com/1CoZ58W6MX — Simon Hix (@simonjhix) November 24, 2019



