Pro-democracy protesters attend a rally in the occupied areas outside government headquarters in Hong Kong’s Admiralty, Oct. 10, 2014.
Last updated on: October 11, 2014 1:45 PM
Two student groups staging pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong have published an open letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping, calling on him to consider political reforms for the city.
The letter, which appeared Saturday in the South China Morning Post, said Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying was to be blamed for the anti-government demostrations that have sprung up in the streets of Hong Kong, a semi-autonomous Chinese territory, over the past two weeks.
The students called on President Xi to allow Hong Kong voters to elect their own chief executive, saying the Beijing-allied Leung and his administration have repeatedly ignored the will of the people.
The numbers of protesters in the streets surged again on Friday, after government authorities cancelled scheduled talks with protest leaders. Reports said the numbers swelled from hundreds at the beginning of the week to thousands.
Meanwhile, China’s Communist Party is renewing its accusation that the United States is behind the pro-democracy protests that have paralyzed parts of Hong Kong.
A front-page editorial Saturday in the party-run People’s Daily said U.S. government officials, non-government groups, and media are working to foment a “color revolution” in the semiautonomous Chinese territory.
The editorial said the U.S. pretends to be defending democracy and human rights, but is really “defending its own strategic interests and undermining governments it considers to be ‘insubordinate.'”
It appears to be Beijing’s most direct accusation yet of U.S. involvement in the protest movement, which is aimed at allowing Hong Kongers to elect their own leader in 2017.
The U.S. says it would like to see universal suffrage in Hong Kong, but has yet to offer its outright support to the civil disobedience movement, which appears to be picking up momentum.
On Friday, Chinese Premiere Li Keqiang said he is confident Hong Kong’s “social stability” can be preserved and said China will not change its so-called “one country, two systems” arrangement for the territory.
While meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, Li said Hong Kong’s long-term stability must be preserved for the good of Hong Kong’s citizens as well as those in mainland China.
