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[h=2]Hong Kong nears tipping point with Beijing[/h]
July 3rd, 2014 |
Author: Online Press
Protest in HK
(HONG KONG, Jul 2) – This isn’t the way it was supposed to be.
It’s been 17 years since the clock struck midnight on a stormy July 1 and
Hong Kong was officially handed back to China after more than 150 years of
British colonial rule. Yet the same fears and protestations that accompanied
that historic handover remain and, in some instances, have even intensified.
That was evident by the hundreds of thousands of protesters who, braving
periodic thunderstorms and summer temperatures as high as 32 Celsius, took to
the streets to mark this year’s anniversary of the handover.
While it is true that every July 1 since 1997 has been punctuated by a mass
anti-Beijing rally, this year’s demonstration stood out not just for the number
of people who took part but also for their anger and fervor – among them not
just the usual pro-democracy groups but also villagers from the northeastern New
Territories whose homes would be destroyed by a government plan to build two new
towns near the border with the mainland and whose cause has become caught up in
the anti-government sentiment pervading the city.
In the annual numbers battle over turnout, the Civil Human Rights Front,
organizer of the march, claimed 510,000 people took part – no doubt too high –
while the Hong Kong police said 92,000 joined in – no doubt too low. A headcount
by the University of Hong Kong public opinion program estimated turnout at
between 154,000 and 172,000 – probably more like it.
Whatever the case, it was the largest July 1 protest in a decade, even if
organizers did not achieve their stated goal of topping 500,000, the number of
protesters who turned out in 2003 to oppose a national security bill, proposed
by the administration of Hong Kong’s first post-handover chief executive, Tung
Chee-hwa, that many feared would endanger freedom of speech and assembly in the
city. The bill was withdrawn, and Tung would later resign from office.
This latest mass protest, on top of the 180,000 people who gathered on June 4
for the annual candlelight memorial honoring those who died in the government
crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989,
has put this city’s population of 7.1 million on edge as Hong Kong continues its
struggle of nearly two decades to claim its identity as a special administrative
region of China.
The hapless Tung’s two successors, derided by critics as mere lackeys who
receive their orders from Beijing, have not fared much better than he did;
Donald Tsang Yam-kuen left office in 2012 with a cloud of corruption allegations
hanging over his head, and Hong Kong’s current chief executive, Leung Chun-ying,
is so unpopular that he cannot appear in public without suffering verbal abuse
and having fruit and other objects thrown his way.
More in: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/CHIN-01-020714.html
Protest in HK
(HONG KONG, Jul 2) – This isn’t the way it was supposed to be.
It’s been 17 years since the clock struck midnight on a stormy July 1 and
Hong Kong was officially handed back to China after more than 150 years of
British colonial rule. Yet the same fears and protestations that accompanied
that historic handover remain and, in some instances, have even intensified.
That was evident by the hundreds of thousands of protesters who, braving
periodic thunderstorms and summer temperatures as high as 32 Celsius, took to
the streets to mark this year’s anniversary of the handover.
While it is true that every July 1 since 1997 has been punctuated by a mass
anti-Beijing rally, this year’s demonstration stood out not just for the number
of people who took part but also for their anger and fervor – among them not
just the usual pro-democracy groups but also villagers from the northeastern New
Territories whose homes would be destroyed by a government plan to build two new
towns near the border with the mainland and whose cause has become caught up in
the anti-government sentiment pervading the city.
In the annual numbers battle over turnout, the Civil Human Rights Front,
organizer of the march, claimed 510,000 people took part – no doubt too high –
while the Hong Kong police said 92,000 joined in – no doubt too low. A headcount
by the University of Hong Kong public opinion program estimated turnout at
between 154,000 and 172,000 – probably more like it.
Whatever the case, it was the largest July 1 protest in a decade, even if
organizers did not achieve their stated goal of topping 500,000, the number of
protesters who turned out in 2003 to oppose a national security bill, proposed
by the administration of Hong Kong’s first post-handover chief executive, Tung
Chee-hwa, that many feared would endanger freedom of speech and assembly in the
city. The bill was withdrawn, and Tung would later resign from office.
This latest mass protest, on top of the 180,000 people who gathered on June 4
for the annual candlelight memorial honoring those who died in the government
crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989,
has put this city’s population of 7.1 million on edge as Hong Kong continues its
struggle of nearly two decades to claim its identity as a special administrative
region of China.
The hapless Tung’s two successors, derided by critics as mere lackeys who
receive their orders from Beijing, have not fared much better than he did;
Donald Tsang Yam-kuen left office in 2012 with a cloud of corruption allegations
hanging over his head, and Hong Kong’s current chief executive, Leung Chun-ying,
is so unpopular that he cannot appear in public without suffering verbal abuse
and having fruit and other objects thrown his way.
More in: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/CHIN-01-020714.html
