Hong Kong's Legislative Council rejected an electoral reform plan with 28 of 37 lawmakers present voting against it after a lengthy debate ended on Thursday. This is a setback to the orderly progress of Hong Kong democracy. What the ultra-democrats are doing could undermine the economic interests of Hong Kong by affecting its prosperity, which is increasingly mainland-generated.

Until 1997 the administrative authority of a territory that has become a world leader in finance and logistics rested with London rather than Beijing. Although the Western media and business leaders invariably credit their own institutions for the success of Hong Kong, the reality is that Hong Kong (as well as Singapore, another former British colony with ethnic Chinese majority), entered a period of rapid development only after former British prime minister Harold Wilson began his country's "withdrawal" from "East of Suez" in the late 1960s. Since then the steady decline of British influence and authority in the East has been matched in the reverse direction by the development of Hong Kong as a global trading hub.

Because of the immense monetary resources the Chinese mainland has and the internationalization of the yuan in the near future, Hong Kong could overshadow London as the premier financial center after New York in the next decade. This is not something the United Kingdom is expected to take kindly to.