China has warned Hong Kong there are limits to its democracy, as the former British colony debates what kind of universal suffrage should be introduced before the 2017 election for the territory’s leader.

The State Council, or cabinet, yesterday reminded Hong Kong that its freedom to govern itself was subject to Beijing’s authority. Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China ruled under the “one country, two systems” arrangement agreed by Deng Xiaoping and Margaret Thatcher before Britain handed the territory back to China in 1997. Under the system, Hong Kong has the freedom to govern its own affairs, except in the case of foreign and defence policy, which are the domain of Beijing.

“The high degree of autonomy of the Hong Kong special administrative region is not an inherent power, but one that comes solely from the authorisation by the central leadership,” China said in its first white paper on the subject.