The tracks of their tears

FOR more than three decades, since well before Hong Kong’s transition from British to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, politics there has split into two camps. On one side have been those now loosely known as “pan-democrats”, who have argued that only a democratic system can safeguard the freedoms Hong Kong enjoyed (without the democracy) under the British, and that China should be coaxed and hectored into granting it. On the other, “pro-Beijing” politicians have argued that fair elections were less important than smooth relations with the new sovereign power, which would then allow a slow but steady expansion of democratic rights. This month has suggested that both sides have been wrong. The long struggle for democracy, which culminated in last autumn’s 79-day camp-out in central Hong Kong by umbrella-wielding campaigners, has suffered a definitive defeat.

A vote in Hong Kong’s legislature (“Legco”) confirmed that voters among the territory’s 7.3m people will not after all elect their next chief executive directly in 2017. This had become the democrats’ central demand, and the issue over which people took to the streets last year. But on June 18th Legco’s “pan-dems”, with a veto-wielding minority of seats, blocked electoral arrangements approved by China, which would have ensured that only candidates endorsed by a 1,200-member pro-Beijing committee could stand for chief executive. So the next election will be like the previous one in 2012, when the 1,200 did all the voting too.