BEIJING: China insisted on Sunday that candidates for Hong Kong’s next leader must be screened in advance, triggering tears and fury in the former British colony where democracy advocates said they would occupy the financial district.

The standing committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s rubber-stamp parliament, decided that the city’s next chief executive will be elected by popular vote in 2017, but candidates must each be backed by more than half the members of a “broadly representative nominating committee.”