On Tuesday, Chinese leaders ruled in favour of a plan designed to ensure that only “patriots” can take up positions of power in Hong Kong. Under these new reforms, the share of directly elected representatives in the legislature will be nearly halved and an opaque committee to pre-approve candidates before they can run for office will be created; effectively ending free elections in the former British colony, activists and experts say. The overhaul marks the most significant set of government reforms since the city’s handover from Britain to China in 1997 and follows months of escal...