http://online.wsj.com/articles/hong-kongs-hopes-crushed-1409504681

This is the legacy of the Kissinger/Nixon  Shanghai Communiqué (1972),  issued by the United States of America and the People’s Republic of China on February 28, 1972. It culminated when the U.S. broke relations with Taiwan in 1979 and established full relations with the tyrants of the People’s (Communist) Republic of China- …..rsk

The people of Hong Kong can plead or protest for democracy all they want, but they can only hold a sham election for Chief Executive in 2017. That was the ruling of China’s rubber-stamp National People’s Congress on Sunday.

Moderates on both sides of the political spectrum in Hong Kong had urged compromise. They proposed nomination procedures that would satisfy Beijing’s concerns while still allowing the free election that China promised in 1997 when it made the city a self-governing special administrative region for 50 years. Beijing not only rejected these ideas, it seems they were never seriously considered. The Communist Party insists on absolute veto power over the choice of candidates.

The result will be more frustration in Hong Kong. Since the handover from British rule, the city has suffered under mediocre leaders weakened by their lack of a popular mandate. This has angered parts of the population, particularly the young, and some are promising acts of civil disobedience.

The anger is likely to grow. The pro-democracy camp has enough votes in the local Legislative Council to reject Beijing’s sham democracy plan, and a poll by Chinese University in Hong Kong found that 60% of the city’s people want the legislature to vote it down. If Beijing’s plan is voted down, the next Chief Executive will be selected using the current nondemocratic system, in which a 1,200-member committee made up largely of China’s businessmen friends picks the leader. Their choice will face increased resistance from all but the most loyal pro-Beijing partisans.

Beijing is already giving a taste of how it intends to handle any dissent. In the People’s Daily and other state media Saturday, a Foreign Ministry spokesman accused some in the city of “colluding” with external forces. These foreign governments seek “not only to undermine the stability and development of Hong Kong but also to attempt to use Hong Kong as a bridgehead to subvert and infiltrate the mainland.” This is the familiar dishonest ploy to brand democrats unpatriotic and a threat to national security.

Last week police raided the homes of media tycoon Jimmy Lai and a pro-democracy legislator. Mr. Lai, who has bravely financed the democracy movement, is accused by pro-Beijing publications of being a pawn of the U.S. government. He and other pro-democracy figures have been threatened by pro-Beijing mafia groups.

This Putinist politics gets a pro-business gloss because most of the city’s richest businessmen long ago submitted to Beijing’s will. Last week Wang Zhenmin, the dean of the Tsinghua University Law School, was sent to Hong Kong to explain that the electoral system is designed to please the business elite: “If we just ignore their interests, the Hong Kong capitalism will stop. So that’s why on the one hand we realize universal suffrage in Hong Kong, on the other hand we must guarantee the continued development of capitalism in Hong Kong.”

The threat to Hong Kong’s capitalism comes not from democracy, but from the cronyism and erosion of the rule of law that are infiltrating from the mainland. Businessmen may want to curry favor with politicians, but it is competition that drives capitalist prosperity. Beijing foolishly believes that turning Hong Kong into a paradise for oligarchs will make it easier to control.

Beijing’s real motive for Sunday’s decision is fear that a demonstration of democratic success in Hong Kong would spread to the mainland. The Communist Party’s approach to the territory turned harsher after Xi Jinping became chairman of the Party committee on Hong Kong affairs in 2008. So it is no surprise that as supreme leader he continues to take a hard line against democracy.

The tragedy for both Hong Kong and China is that the conflict is unnecessary. The city is manifestly ready for democracy, which would give Beijing fewer headaches rather than more. The cautious and pragmatic population would never elect the populist firebrand that Beijing fears. Instead a vibrant city is caught in a downward spiral of disaffection and fear. Mr. Xi deserves the blame for the consequences.