AUG. 17, 2014
Demonstrators marched Sunday in a pro-government rally. Credit Alex Ogle/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
HONG KONG — Tens of thousands of people marched under a blistering sun in Hong Kong on Sunday to express their opposition to a pro-democracy movement that has threatened to bring Asia’s biggest financial center to a standstill if the government does not open up the nomination process for electing the city’s top leader.
Protesters, many waving Chinese flags, streamed into Victoria Park in the midafternoon before the march, and the contrast with a rally held July 1 by pro-democracy organizers was stark. Most of the participants in Sunday’s rally were organized into groups corresponding to Chinese hometowns, schools or, in some cases, employers, easily identifiable with their matching T-shirts and hats. Middle-aged and elderly people dominated Sunday’s march, while young people dominated last month’s march.
In speech, they often employed the political lexicon of China’s ruling Communist Party. Typical was Kitty Lai, an investment adviser wearing an orange T-shirt and a baseball cap emblazoned with the logo of the Hong Kong Federation of Fujian Associations, a group that represents people who hail from the coastal province across from Taiwan. She said shutting down the Central business district would cause chaos.
“We want everything to be stable,” Ms. Lai, 50, said, in Mandarin Chinese. “We want everybody to live harmoniously.”
Organizers of the July 1 rally estimated that more than 500,000 had taken part in that demonstration, which ended with the arrests of hundreds of participants, including some lawmakers, after they staged an overnight sit-in in Central.
Hong Kong’s police said 111,800 people left Victoria Park on Sunday for the march, more than the 98,600 they recorded for the July 1 march. Yet photographs taken at the peak points of both marches, at the same location, show many more people on the street on July 1. An independent count by Hong Kong University put the maximum number of participants on Sunday at 88,000, compared with a maximum of 172,000 on July 1.
The protesters on Sunday wanted to show their opposition to Occupy Central With Love and Peace, an umbrella organization encompassing a wide swath of Hong Kong society, including students, Christian religious leaders and some bankers. Occupy Central leaders have vowed to bring Central to a standstill with a sit-in should the national legislature and the city government insist on a plan for nominating the chief executive that bars candidates unacceptable to Beijing. That plan could be set in motion at the end of this month, when the National People’s Congress in Beijing is to issue guidelines to the Hong Kong government on how it can write new election rules.
The Alliance for Peace and Democracy, which organized Sunday’s event, said it had gathered 1.4 million signatures in its petition drive against Occupy Central. Leung Chun-ying, Hong Kong’s chief executive, signed it, as did a former chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa. In June, about 800,000 people participated in an Occupy Central referendum that was overseen by a university polling group.
“Hong Kong people desire peace. They’re not afraid of speaking out, and the silent majority has spoken,” Robert Chow, a spokesman for the alliance, said in an interview. “Why should they follow Occupy Central and try to hold Hong Kong hostage? If they really want universal suffrage, negotiate with Beijing. Negotiate with the government.”
Under the laws that have governed Hong Kong since its return to Chinese sovereignty in 1997 from British control, the territory is to move to a system of universal suffrage for picking the chief executive in the 2017 election. But any plan must pass the city’s legislature with a supermajority. Pro-democracy leaders have enough seats in the 70-member Legislative Council to scuttle any proposal should it fail to meet their demands, assuming they stay united.
Some business associations, including leading United States accounting firms, have warned that a protest movement that shut or slowed down Hong Kong’s Central district would harm the city’s image and its economy. China’s vice president, Li Yuanchao, has called the Occupy movement “unlawful.”
