China's parliament chief Zhang Dejiang said today a ruling last year on screening candidates who want to run for election as Hong Kong's top official in 2017 was the correct one, signalling no backing down on a decision that sparked protests in the city.
China has ruled the former British colony since 1997 through a "one country, two systems" formula which allows wide-ranging autonomy and freedoms not enjoyed on the mainland and specifies universal suffrage as an eventual goal.
But the National People's Congress (NPC), China's largely rubber-stamp legislature, said in August it would screen candidates who want to run in the city's election for a chief executive in 2017, which democracy activists said rendered the notion of universal suffrage meaningless.
Zhang, who heads parliament and is also the ruling Communist Party's third-ranked leader, told legislators that the decision was the right one.
The NPC has the right under the constitution and the law to make the "necessary" decisions about how to promote this development, he added.
Last week, Zhang told Hong Kong delegates to parliament that advocates of Hong Kong independence were "crossing a line".
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