'Colonial mentality' still haunts Hong Kong

The opposition "pan-democracy" camp vetoed the Hong Kong Special Administration Region government's universal suffrage plan for the 2017 chief executive's election on June 18, and thus halted the five-step constitutional reform at the third stage and made it very difficult for the SAR government to restart the reform all over again.

Since its reunification with the motherland in 1997 the Hong Kong CE has been chosen through indirect election. Thanks to the constitutional reform and democratic progress centered on "double universal suffrage", the CE was to be elected through universal suffrage in 2017, but the "pan-democracy" camp has dealt a severe blow to the plan.

This is not the first time that Hong Kong's constitutional reform has been interrupted, and the vehement opposition camp and overseas anti-China forces are to blame for that. Quite a few Hong Kong residents haven't fully understood the significance of the city's transition from a British colony to a part of the People's Republic of China or the change in their identity from "second-class British subjects" to PRC citizens. They haven't understood the basic national policy of "One Country, Two Systems" and Hong Kong's Basic Law either.