Hong Kong's legislature last month voted down a China-backed plan to reform the process for electing the territory's chief executive, which opposition, pro-democracy lawmakers considered a "fake" general suffrage model. Beijing should take the rejection by the Hong Kong legislature seriously and come up with a truly democratic plan for electoral reform.

The plan vetoed by the legislature had been crafted by China in August last year. If approved, it would have allowed Hong Kong residents to vote in a 2017 election for their next chief executive — but only from a list of pre-approved, pro-Beijing candidates. Opposition activists, who demanded that pro-democracy candidates be allowed to run in the election, organized massive demonstrations against the plan for more than two months on Hong Kong's main streets last year.

Britain returned Hong Kong to China in 1997. The Hong Kong Basic Law stipulates that someday the chief executive will be elected through general suffrage. But its three chief executives so far have been elected by a 1,200-member nominating committee dominated by pro-Beijing loyalists. The latest vote by the legislature means this system will remain through the 2017 election unless new reform is carried out.