Hong Kong's legislature has convened for the first time since elections last month that were held under new laws ensuring only "patriots" who have proven their loyalty to Beijing could run as candidates.
The 90-seat Legislative Council, known as LegCo, is dominated by Beijing's allies. Leading opposition figures are in jail, exile or have been intimidated into silence, and independent media outlets forced to close.
The largest pro-democracy party, the Democratic Party, decided not to field candidates rather than lend legitimacy to what it regards as an undemocratic process.
Just 20 of the seats were directly elected, and the turnout of 30.2% was the lowest since the UK handed Hong Kong over to China in 1997. All candidates were vetted by a largely pro-Beijing committee before they could be nominated.
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam opened Wednesday's session, using the opportunity to criticise former legislators who she said were "anti-China and who have attempted to destabilise Hong Kong, had tried to politicise council businesses and made it difficult for LegCo to fully perform its functions".
Since the expulsion or resignation of opposition legislators, the council has enjoyed a "fruitful year marked with a constructive and interactive relationship between the LegCo and the executive authorities with remarkable achievements", said Ms Lam who, along with several members of her government, is under a US visa ban.
Chinese president and head of the ruling Communist Party Xi Jinping praised the elections as adhering to the "one country, two systems" principle, referring to the increasingly threadbare framework under which Hong Kong was to retain its own political, social and financial institutions for 50 years after being transferred from British rule.
The elections had been postponed for a year - ostensibly due to a spike in Covid-19 cases - after the opposition swept elections for district councillors.
They followed widespread and increasingly violent anti-government protests in 2019 that prompted Beijing to impose a sweeping national security law, followed by a reorganisation of the electoral process and transformation of the Legislative Council to stack it with pro-Beijing loyalists.
Some overseas pro-democracy activists, including London-based Nathan Law, urged a boycott of the vote, saying the elections were undemocratic.
Under the new election laws, incitement to boycott voting or cast invalid votes can be punished by up to three years in jail and a 200,000 Hong Kong dollar (£18,800) fine.
The session opened as Hong Kong struggles with a new wave of Covid-19 infections related to the global spread of the Omicron variant.
Twenty legislators skipped the opening session after joining a large birthday party that sparked fears of a new cluster when a guest tested positive for coronavirus.
Hong Kong has also closed nurseries and primary schools after infections were discovered among pupils, banned flights from the US and seven other countries and held 2,500 passengers on a cruise ship for coronavirus testing on Wednesday as the city attempts to stem the emerging Omicron outbreak.
Ms Lam appeared to rule out imposing a new lockdown at this time.
"If we want a stricter approach, we could only stay home - it can only be done with a curfew," she said.
"Today I don't think we are at the stage where we have to apply stricter measures to deal with the pandemic."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here