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3/ People mainly focused on crimes of "misconduct in public office". But I think they missed a very important - or possibly the most important - point, which is found between the lines of HKMAO's statement criticising Legislators for violating their oath.
4/ It directly questions the councillors' legitimacy and is an obvious attempt to pave the way to their disqualification. This is the key! I remember last year, during the extradition bill's quarrelsome twin committees fiasco*, the HKMAO had yet to make such accusations.
5/ Even when Pan-dem continued to host a committee meeting that the regime considered illegal, the act was not questioned as a violation of oath. It's obvious that State Council chose to mention this not even half year before the election to pave the way for forced intervention.
6/ They plan to disqualify councillors for not fulfilling their oath. Should the pro-democracy camp manage to take more than half the seats in in this September's LegCo election, the pro-Beijing camp will claim that a "constitutional crisis" is triggered.
7/ Even though nothing explicit has been stated, I will make this tactical prediction - if the pro-democracy camp is able to take over half of the council seats, and gets to veto one bill after another while Beijing sits idly by, then I will definitely be glad to bear witness.
8/ It's obvious though based on events in the past four years, any hope that Beijing will follow the rules and allow the Pan-dem run LegCo properly will be dashed. We have to prepare for the worst.
9/ I believe a more likely scenario will be this - around the time of next year's budget release, Beijing will directly take control of the existing LegCo, disqualifying all 70 lawmakers. They may refer to the dissolution of the pro-democrat dominated LegCo in 1997 as an example.
10/ (That's right, LegCo had a pro-democrat majority during 1995-1997.) They can outright establish a "Provisional LegCo 2.0" and appoint councillors to hold meetings in Shenzhen. This does not require a wild imagination. Wilder things have happened in Hong Kong in the past year.
11/ HKMAO's statement is a reminder for HKers to be vigilant & prepared. Of course, we must strive to get more than half the seats! But even if we succeed in achieving this miracle, the regime may still use ever more creative ways - like oath violations - to unseat Legislators.
12/ This is why I wrote "Fight at any cost internationally", linking existing LegCo's survival with survival of HK's separate status as a tax haven. On the chessboard of international politics, only with a tight grasp of regime's weaknesses do we stand a chance against Beijing.
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