The intervention relates to Article 104 of the city’s mini-constitution, which states that lawmakers must swear allegiance to Hong Kong as part of China when they take office. It came even before a Hong Kong court had ruled, representing some of the worst privately held fears of senior judges and some government officials in Hong Kong, according to sources close to them.
The move was expected to enrage Hong Kong democracy activists further, a day after hundreds of demonstrators clashed with police in running battles around China’s representative office in Hong Kong. The scenes on Sunday night were reminiscent of pro-democracy protests in late 2014 that paralysed parts of the Asian financial centre and posed one of the greatest political challenges to the central government in Beijing in decades.
