Li Fei, deputy secretary-general of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), met with Hong Kong representatives from various walks of life at a forum in Shenzhen on Thursday and Friday.

He made it clear on Friday that the next chief executive of Hong Kong must be elected from candidates picked by a nomination committee.

The NPC is expected to pass decisions on August 31 over the 2017 election. Analysts believe it will be the time for a showdown over political reform in Hong Kong.

Democratic activists in Hong Kong said if the NPC requires more than half of the votes from the nomination committee to qualify a candidate, Occupy Central will be unavoidable. The activists are apparently continuing to pressure the central government.

It looks like there is a pending storm. But no matter how strong the storm is, Hong Kong can sustain it with the help of the central government. The political reform in Hong Kong will be implemented based on the Basic Law. There is no compromise.

The Basic Law stipulates that Hong Kong's leader will be elected from candidates picked by a widely representative nomination committee. The Basic Law is a result of intense negotiations between China and Britain before the return of Hong Kong in 1997.

Some people want to turn the clock back to the 1980s and overthrow the Basic Law passed by the NPC in 1990.

The activists first proposed so-called public nomination or nomination by political parties, saying those are international standards.

Now they draw the line over the majority-pass rule, and threaten with Occupy Central protests.

The activist should keep this in mind: the Chinese government has rejected various unreasonable requests from the British during the negotiations in the past, so how could the small number of oppositionists get any compromise that former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher longed for but failed to get?

More people in the mainland and Hong Kong believe that if the central government give up to the oppositions' threat this time, Hong Kong will see no peace in the future.

The return of Hong Kong to China's arms and the consolidation of the achievement is the Chinese people's century-old dream coming true. It is a core value of China. China will pay every cost to preserve the achievement.

There may still be some twists and turns on the way of Hong Kong's political reform. We strongly hope the central government can make a resolute decision. We believe that the clearer and resolute the decision is, the clearer a future the Hong Kong public will see. The situation of political reform will also clear up.