Special to WorldTribune.com

By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com

The case of NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden has drawn the world’s attention to the extent to which Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership can influence the decision of the authorities of the Hong Kong special administrative region (SAR).

Yet Beijing’s concern over the former British colony goes way beyond whether the SAR should hand Snowden over to law-enforcement officials in the United States.

The top priority of the CCP administration is to prevent a “color revolution” from sweeping the SAR, most of whose residents are unhappy over Beijing’s likely renegement of a promise to allow Hong Kong to pick its next chief executive (CE) through universal suffrage.

Senior CCP cadres have reiterated that only Hong Kong politicians who have been vetted by a pro-Beijing “nomination committee” can become legal candidates for CE polls scheduled for 2017.

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  Benny Tai, Chinese Communist Party, special administrative region, The PLA has much bigger concerns in Hong Kong than what to do about Edward Snowden