Political change up to Beijing, official tells HK group

HONG KONG, Mar 8 (Reuters) Only Beijing has the power to change the political system in Hong Kong and that cannot be challenged, a newspaper today quoted the head of China's parliament as saying.

The comments came as campaigning heats up ahead of the March 25 Chief Executive election in Hong Kong, with Beijing-backed incumbent Donald Tsang and pro-democracy challenger Alan Leong sparring on a range of issues, including the emotive debate over the pace of democratic reform in the former British colony.

''Some things cannot be challenged! The centre has authority over the political system. It is not the authority of the Special Administrative Region,'' the Beijing-supported Ta Kung Pao daily quoted Wu Bangguo as telling Hong Kong delegates to the National People's Congress.

Britain returned Hong Kong to China in 1997, when it became a Special Administrative Region of the mainland. Hong Kong enjoys a high degree of autonomy even though Beijing has kept a tight hold on political change.

Wu, who ranks second in the Communist Party hierarchy after President Hu Jintao, said Hong Kong's post-handover constitution, known as the Basic Law, was clear on where authority lay.

''The 'Basic Law' guarantees executive predominance (in Hong Kong politics), and the Special Administrative Region government must be responsible towards the centre,'' he said.

The Basic Law recognises universal suffrage as the ultimate goal for picking a leader and city legislators, but there is heated debate over when and how the people of Hong Kong will be granted that right.

Under the current arrangement, the Chief Executive is picked by an 800-seat electoral committee stacked in Beijing's favour, and Tsang is widedly expected to win. Only half of Hong Kong's lawmakers are popularly elected with the rest picked by ''functional constituencies''.

A pillar of Leong's campaign has been a promise to introduce universal suffrage by the election in 2012. Tsang has tried to sidestep questions of timing and emphasise the need for discussions on the steps needed to get there.

Reuters BDP DB0957