Hong Kong's leader on Monday praised China's plan to ensure only "patriots" remain in politics, denying the move was a purge of the opposition.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam ruled out any need to consult the public on the changes, as they were decreed by Beijing.

Legislation to vet all election candidates in Hong Kong is currently being discussed by China's rubber-stamp parliament and is expected to be adopted on Thursday.

China has said only those deemed "patriotic" will be allowed to stand.

Critics say the radical overhaul of the city's already limited democratic system will demolish what remains of the pro-democracy opposition and ensure only loyalists remain, an argument that Lam rejected on Monday.

"The improvements to the electoral system are not designed to favour someone, it is designed to ensure that whoever is administering Hong Kong is patriotic," Lam, a pro-Beijing appointee, told reporters after returning from the gathering in Beijing.

"The decision is timely, necessary, lawful and constitutional, and the central authorities' leadership and decision-making power are unquestionable."

Authoritarian China promised Hong Kong would keep a degree of autonomy and certain freedoms when it reverted from British colonial rule in 1997.

The city has a partially elected legislature and China also promised to one day grant residents universal suffrage.

Critics had for years complained freedoms were being steadily eroded. Beijing then ramped up the dismantling of the financial hub's democratic pillars in response to huge and sometimes violent democracy rallies that paralysed the city throughout 2019.

Hong Kong was poised to hold direct elections for half the city legislature's seats last summer but delayed the polls for a year, citing the coronavirus.

On Monday, Lam hinted a further delay was likely given the sweeping changes Beijing is planning.

"We are not able to tell you now whether the September election can proceed as scheduled," she said, adding the priority was to implement whatever changes Beijing decides on first.

She said her government would launch an "intensive" drive to explain the changes.

But she said there was no need for a "so-called extensive public consultation", arguing the transformation of Hong Kong's political system was "urgent" and was being spearheaded by the central government.

Hong Kong has never been a democracy -- something that has fuelled protests and resentment in the territory towards Beijing.

But it maintained a measure of choice, allowing a vocal opposition to contest certain local elections and maintain a minority presence.

When Hong Kongers were allowed to vote, they tended to return high counts for candidates advocating greater democracy.

In recent years authorities have ramped up the disqualification of politicians either sitting in the city's semi-elected legislature or standing as candidates, based on their political views.

Beijing also imposed a sweeping national security law on Hong Kong last year, snuffing out protest and clobbering the pro-democracy opposition.

Many of the city's most prominent democracy campaigners have since been arrested, jailed or fled overseas.

Top Japanese banker sounds alarm over Hong Kong freedoms
Hong Kong (AFP) March 8, 2021 - China's crackdown in Hong Kong has left Japanese finance firms "very much afraid" and reconsidering whether to remain in the city, a senior banker said Monday in a rare public declaration of concern from within the industry.

Yoshitaka Kitao, chief executive of financial conglomerate SBI Holdings, which runs Japan's largest online brokerage, told the Financial Times he was planning to pull his company's operations out of the southern Chinese city, arguing that "without freedom, there is no financial business".

Other Japanese companies, he told the newspaper, were thinking about doing the same but were less willing to say so openly.

"They are unlike me. I'm a very straightforward guy. But all the others, in their bellies, they think they should move out or won't invest more in Hong Kong," Kitao said in an interview published on Monday.

Beijing is struggling to quash dissent in semi-autonomous Hong Kong after huge and sometimes violent pro-democracy demonstrations in 2019.

It has imposed a broad national security law on the city that has criminalised much opposition, and is planning to enact new rules vetting all political candidates for their "patriotism".

Senior Chinese leaders have also called for "reform" of the city's independent judiciary, a key component of Hong Kong's status as a regional business hub.

Many international business figures privately fret their companies could be caught in the crossfire as Beijing and multiple Western nations feud over China's plans for Hong Kong.

But few have vocalised them so publicly as Kitao, whose company last year had a market capitalisation of US$5.9 billion.

In his interview with the newspaper, Kitao said businesses were now questioning whether it made sense to remain in Hong Kong -- a city with notoriously high rents -- if the business landscape becomes little different from mainland China.

"If I want to do business in China, I would rather have an office in Beijing or Shanghai or somewhere," he said.

He added he was looking at cities such as Shanghai -- or rival Singapore -- to move SBI's 100-person Hong Kong operation to.

Kitao specifically mentioned Beijing's security law as a reason Hong Kong was now "not a good place for financial institutions", the report said.

Spokesman Toshiki Aoyama of SBI Holdings confirmed Kitao's interview comments but played down the idea that a move from Hong Kong was imminent.

Aoyama said SBI had previously voiced concerns about the security law and was "considering" a relocation.

"But we are still in the phase of studying and there is no concrete plan decided yet," he told AFP.

Kitao's comments are unlikely to go down well with Beijing.

China's leaders have made it clear they expect international businesses to back its clampdown in Hong Kong or risk being frozen out of its lucrative markets.

HSBC, which publicly embraced the security law and makes the vast majority of its profits from China and Hong Kong, recently announced plans to ramp up its presence in the finance hub.

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Beijing to tighten vetting of Hong Kong legislators
Beijing (AFP) March 5, 2021
China will give itself power to veto any candidate for Hong Kong's legislature, according to a draft proposal described on Friday by a top Chinese lawmaker that represents a significant blow to the city's already limited democracy. A Beijing-controlled election committee in the city would be tasked with "electing a large proportion of Legislative Council members and directly participating in the nomination of all Legislative Council members," Wang Chen, vice-chairman of the National People's Congres ... read more