2014-10-22
Hong Kong residents protest Leung Chun-ying’s comments that a full democracy would place too much power in the hands of those who earn less than U.S. $1,800 a month, Oct. 22, 2014.
RFA
A student leader of a mass pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong called on Wednesday for direct talks with the ruling Chinese Communist Party following a live televised debate on Tuesday in which local officials offered minor concessions but rejected protesters’ demands for genuine universal suffrage in 2017 elections.
Alex Chow, leader of the influential Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS), told RFA that student leaders of the Occupy Central campaign, which has blocked major highways in the semi-autonomous city since Sept. 28, want to know exactly how far Beijing would let Hong Kong go.
He said the protesters have no plans to leave the occupied sites any time soon, but called for direct dialogue with Chinese officials instead, possibly with a member of China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) standing committee.
“I’m talking about … allowing citizens to question them directly,” Chow said. “Hong Kong officials say they can’t [make concessions], but can they really not? Can this be at least on the table?”
Protesters have repeatedly called on embattled chief executive Leung Chun-ying to resign, and want an open nomination process for elections for his replacement in 2017.
An Aug. 31 ruling by Beijing said Hong Kong’s five million-strong electorate will each get a vote in the poll, but that their options will be limited to two or three “patriotic” candidates approved by a nominating committee likely to be stacked with pro-China and pro-establishment members.
Leung’s second-in-command Carrie Lam on Tuesday said the 2017 poll must stay within the framework laid down by the NPC standing committee that controls China’s rubber-stamp parliament, which has had the final power to interret Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law, since the 1997 handover.
But she said the government, which ignored calls for public nominations in a July report to Beijing, would file a fresh report to Beijing and consider further changes to election procedures after 2017.
She also invited the students to take part in a “platform” for the exchange of views on further constitutional and political change, post-2017.
Students respond
But the students said Lam’s offers were too vague, and pledged to continue the Occupy movement and to boycott classes.
“About whether there will be talks in the future, this is something that isn’t decided,” Chow told reporters on Wednesday.
“The government has to come up with some way to solve this problem, but what they are offering does not have any practical content,” Chow said.
He said it was hard to see the point of a fresh report from the Hong Kong government to Beijing, as it is unlikely to affect the NPC standing committee’s Aug. 31 edict.
Joshua Wong, head of the academic activism group Scholarism, said he had no intention of taking part in Lam’s “platform.”
“We’re not even done talking about 2017 yet, so why are they thinking about a platform to discuss the post-2017 political framework?” he said.
“Who else would take part in it? What would it discuss? I think that the government needn’t bother inviting us if this platform won’t be discussing the 2017 political reforms,” Wong said.
The students’ comments came as sporadic clashes erupted once more between frustrated taxi-drivers and protesters who have barricaded themselves into a major intersection in the bustling working-class district of Mong Kok.
Police stepped in to prevent physical violence after scuffles and slanging matches broke out.
File for injunction
Meanwhile, a bus company and two transportation industry associations filed a writ with Hong Kong’s High Court, in an attempt to win an injunction ordering protesters camped in hundreds of tents on Harcourt Road in Admiralty district to leave.
The Court has already granted injunctions brought by the transportation industry in Mong Kok, but it remains to be seen whether its bailiffs feel able to enforce them.
