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TAIPEI - A SENIOR Taiwanese official said on Sunday that Beijing's move to delay any direct election for Hong Kong's leader until 2017 underlined why Taiwan could not accept reunification with China.
Tung Chen-yuan, a deputy chief of Taiwan's China policy-making body, known as the Mainland Affairs Council, said the decision sent a clear signal 'that the Chinese Communist Party does not allow genuine democracy'.
He told AFP it also showed that the 'one country, two systems' being used to rule both Hong Kong and Macau cannot possibly be accepted by the people of Taiwan'.
Taiwan and China have been separate since their split in 1949 at the end of a civil war, but China still regards the island as part of its territory that is awaiting reunification - by force if necessary.
The government in Taipei has rejected Beijing's offer to run Taiwan using the 'one country, two systems' format like in Hong Kong and Macau, under which their free-wheel economies are guaranteed for 50 years.
China's National People's Congress gave a tentative green light Saturday to the election of Hong Kong's chief executive in 2017, the clearest indication yet of the city's political future.
However, that ignores chief executive Donald Tsang's admission in a report earlier this month that the public expected the former British colony's leader to be elected by universal suffrage in 2012.
In a statement late on Saturday, the Mainland Affairs Council said China had not responded to Hong Kong people's demands for democracy.
'If the Chinese government continues to ignore the mainstream opinions of Hong Kong people,' it warned, its people 'may take more dramatic measures'.
'Should that happen it would be an irony of the Chinese government leaders' pledge to 'build a harmonious society' and 'walk in the direction of democracy road', it added.
The council called on Beijing to allow greater autonomy in Hong Kong as a contribution to international affairs. -- AFP
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