A former senior Hong Kong legislator on Friday warned that the Occupy Central movement will have a negative effect on all ordinary people in Hong Kong.

Rita Fan Hsu Lai-tai, former president of the Legislative Council of the Hong Kong Special Administration Region, cited an old Chinese saying: "lifting a stone only to drop it on one's own feet."

The phrase is similar in meaning to being "hoisted by one's own petard" in English.

The organizers of the movement have called on Hong Kong residents to join a mass demonstration in the Central district for the past year. The district is a downtown area packed with banks and high-end office buildings.

"Such action harms others without any benefit to the organizers themselves," said Fan, also a member of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), on the sidelines of the annual NPC session.

Putting Hong Kong's financial hub on halt will only increase political and economic instability in Hong Kong, she said.

"Rating agencies across the world will lower their rating of Hong Kong. We will have to pay a higher price to do business. Isn't that backfire?"

The purpose of the movement is to force the central government to change its stance on Hong Kong's political progress, even though it is in line with laws, she said.

The central government is unlikely to change its stance because to do that the central government would have to violate the laws, she said.

The election of Hong Kong SAR chief executive by universal suffrage in 2017 should be done in line with the Basic Law and related resolutions of the NPC Standing Committee, she said.

Fan said she hopes the Occupy Central movement will not happen.

"It is an illegal movement and the organizers and participants will have to pay the price, which is fair," Fan said. "However, most Hong Kong people do not support this act and they have to pay the price as well. This is so unfair."

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