China to deliberate on Hong Kong's political future

China's top leaders will meet this week for talks on the political future of Hong Kong, the BBC reported.

The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress is holding a week-long session to discuss how Hong Kong picked its leader.

According to Beijing, Hong Kong residents could elect their leader in 2017, but critics expected Beijing to screen candidates via a nominating committee.

Pro-democracy activists had pledged large-scale civil disobedience in the absence of an acceptable agreement.

According to state-run Xinhua news agency, lawmakers would deliberate on a report from Hong Kong chief executive C Y Leung on whether to revise election methods for the territory's top job.

Though Leung had been selected by a 1,200-member committee in 2012, in 2017 Hong Kong residents would be allowed to vote for their leader.

The core concern was whether Beijing would require candidates for the position of chief executive to be supported by over 50 per cent of a nominating committee in order to get his or her name on the ballot.

Meanwhile, police in Macau detained five people involved in staging an unofficial referendum on democracy in the southern Chinese territory, nearly two months after activists angered Beijing by conducting a similar poll in Hong Kong, swissinfo.ch reported.

The informal referendum among Macau's 600,000 residents comes as a re-election next Sunday is likely to be won by local leader Fernando Chui.

However, it was an official body of 400 that elected the leader, similar to Hong Kong where a small committee of largely pro-Beijing loyalists decided who got on the ballot, effectively rendering the ability to vote meaningless.

The informal referendum, in the world's biggest gambling hub, calls for a vote on election of  leader by universal suffrage in 2019.