Mainland can be at ease over Hong Kong politics

Results for the Hong Kong Legislative Council Election were released Monday, with pan-democrats retaining 27 - more than a third - of the 70 seats, while the pro-Beijing camp gained 43 seats. Before the election, some believed that the controversy surrounding the national education program would be a favorable situation for the pan-democratic camp, but the result turned out to be the opposite.

There have been splits within the pan-democracy camp in recent years. It has done little more than utter slogans. Hong Kong people pay more attention to concrete interests. But the election results show that the pan-democracy camp still has a political basis. The mindset of the central government toward this election and the Hong Kong chief executive's election early this year is generally relaxed. Such an attitude can finally become the one that the mainland has with regards to Hong Kong's political development.

According to decisions of the National People's Congress, Hong Kong can have universal suffrage for its next chief executive election in 2017. It means the Hong Kong people will have a more thorough administration of their region. Some mainland analysts think Hong Kong will see some disturbances but its stability can be higher than expected.

The "independence of Hong Kong" will never take place. It's impossible in military and political terms, nor does it have a foundation among the public.

"One country, two systems" determines that Hong Kong has a completely different political system than that of the mainland. No camp can be the winner forever under its election system. It's unrealistic for the pro-Beijing camp to dominate power.

With Hong Kong's universal suffrage coming, how different parties are divided will not be confined to whether they are for or against Beijing. It is likely that one day the parties will not be split between those aligned with the mainland and those that are not. By then the mainland can have a more detached mindset toward Hong Kong's politics.

The mainland should make efforts toward this goal. Hong Kong does not pay taxes to the central government. The mainland does not need to show a preference toward its economy. We should treat Hong Kong like other cities by encouraging it to compete with mainland cities. In the future, what the ruling parties are will not mean much for the mainland. The mainland does not have to be concerned about its minor political incidents.

Of course this is an ideal state of affairs. Hong Kong and the mainland are influencing each other. Hong Kong is concerned about being assimilated by the mainland while the mainland worries about Hong Kong's political influence. But the mainland can handle it well in many ways.

The article is an editorial published in the Chinese edition of the Global Times Tuesday.