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Article snippet: HONG KONG — Nearly three years after sweeping pro-democracy protests filled the streets of removing four legislators from office and assuring China greater influence over the city’s government. The pro-democracy lawmakers were dismissed from the Hong Kong Legislative Council because they had used unacceptable words or even dubious tones in taking oaths of office that require declarations of loyalty to China. The ruling means that democracy advocates in the semiautonomous city’s legislature will no longer have enough votes to block legislation from their pro-Beijing counterparts. “Voters entrusted us with the task of monitoring the government,” said Leung Kwok-hung, one of those unseated. “We’ve lost that power.” Hong Kong has been rattled by episodes that have raised fears that China is reaching deeper into the city to enforce its will. A bookseller who sold lurid titles about China’s leaders was abducted and taken to mainland China. Xiao Jianhua, a prominent billionaire who grew up in China, was snatched from a high-end hotel and brought to the mainland. And when President Xi Jinping of China visited Hong Kong two weeks ago for the 20th anniversary of its return to Chinese sovereignty, he mixed reassurances about the city’s special status with an unmistakable warning not to test Beijing’s will. Since 1997, China’s economy has become less dependent on Hong Kong, while the territory’s prosperity has become more entangled with the mainland. As the political and eco... Link to the full article to read more