Alex Lo

My Take | Too late to ‘pocket first’ as Xi seeks to abolish term limits

Pan-dems ignored the advice of Shih Wing-ching on the 2015 reform package but now with events in Beijing they would be wise to pursue a different course

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Chinese President Xi Jinping met with villagers in Zhanqi Village of Pidu District in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, onb. 12, 2018. China is planning to end term limits on the presidency, allowing Xi Jinping to stay in office beyond 2023. Photo: Xinhua

Alex Loin Toronto

Published: 12:12am, 28 Feb 2018Updated: 5:53pm, 6 Mar 2018

Prominent businessman Shih Wing-ching is usually credited with coining the phrase “pocket first’ in reference to accepting the restricted framework on universal suffrage imposed by Beijing. In the event, pan-democrats in the legislature voted down the government’s electoral reform package in 2015.

Shih didn’t know how prescient he was. And pan-dems and their diehard supporters still won’t admit how foolish they had been. But many people had already warned at the time that rejecting the reform package meant the end of the road for democratic development in Hong Kong for a long time to come.

This view turned out to be completely correct, but was wilfully ignored even by some very smart and informed pan-dems.

Now, it is undeniable. With plans to abolish term limits on the presidency, Xi Jinping is expected to stay in office beyond 2023.

“No outsider can know for sure what the latest constitutional change in China will mean,” wrote James Fallows of The Atlantic news magazine, one of the most fair-minded Western observers on China today. “Probably no one inside China can be sure, either.”