The vote pitted pro-Beijing loyalists against opposition candidates competing for four seats in the city’s legislature.
HONG KONG — Hong Kong residents voted Sunday in by-elections that give opposition supporters the chance to recapture lost ground in a contest measuring voters’ appetite for democracy in the semiautonomous Chinese city.
The vote pitted pro-Beijing loyalists against opposition candidates competing for four seats in the city’s semidemocratic legislature. They’re among six seats left empty when a group of lawmakers were expelled following a 2016 controversy over their oaths, which they used to defy China.
The ejected members included two advocating Hong Kong’s independence, something Chinese President Xi Jinping has called a ‘‘red line.’’
In the vote’s main battleground, little-known activist Au Nok-hin, a neighborhood councilor, was competing against pro-Beijing rival Judy Chan.
He was enlisted at the last moment after officials disqualified the prodemocracy camp’s marquee candidate, 21-year-old Agnes Chow, because she advocated for Hong Kongers to determine their own future.
‘‘This election is not just a normal election; it is a battle between the pro-Beijing camp and the prodemocracy camp,’’ Chow said. It’s ‘‘also a very important choice for Hong Kong people for whether they want rule of law or rule by the Communist Party.’’
Chow said Hong Kong’s younger generation hopes for democratic development. But that prospect looks increasingly distant after China’s rubber-stamp parliament voted Sunday to abolish presidential term limits, allowing Xi to stay in power indefinitely.
Chow had intended to stand for the seat vacated after the disqualification of Nathan Law, a fellow member of their Demosisto party who became Hong Kong’s youngest-ever lawmaker.
The two were among a wave of young activists who emerged from the massive but inconclusive 2014 ‘‘Umbrella Movement’’ demonstrations against Beijing’s plans to restrict elections for Hong Kong’s top leader.
