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Hong Kong Liberal Party pushes for tax delay for small businesses affected by Occupy protests
A contingent of lawmakers has urged the government to allow businesses whose incomes were affected by the Occupy movement to defer their provisional tax payments by two or three months next year, the Liberal Party said yesterday.
The suggestion was made by three lawmakers from the pro-business party in a meeting with Finance Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah.
Tsang did not give a clear indication as to whether he agreed with the suggestion, but he told the lawmakers he would consider it.
"Tsang said he would give it a thought," said the Liberal Party's newly-elected chairman Felix Chung Kwok-pan.
Tsang is expected to unveil the budget for the coming financial year in February. Over dinner at a banquet on Wednesday, he collected views on the budget from more than 20 pro-establishment lawmakers.
Chung, who represents the textiles and garment sector, said small and medium-sized enterprises in retail, catering and logistics were hit hardest by the Occupy movement, which came to an end on Monday after the final protest encampment in Causeway Bay was cleared. Activists had occupied three sites on city streets to protest against Beijing's restrictive framework for the 2017 chief executive election.
Chung said many small businesses expected their cash flow to dwindle in the first half of next year.
"The suggestion would not affect the government's financial position at all, but it can help to boost the cash flow of small businesses," Chung said.
His party colleague Tommy Cheung Yu-yan, who represents the catering sector, also urged the government to exempt or reduce the license and business registration fees to ease the financial burdens of such companies.
Earlier this month Tsang had warned that, because of the prolonged protests, the city's economic growth for this year could be lower than the government's adjusted forecast of 2.2 per cent.
But some official figures - including the government's figure on retail sales in October, the Tourism Board's October figure on the number of visitors and the number of property transactions in the first ten months this year - have indicated the contrary.
Handmade brass yellow ribbons at "Yellow Market" at Foo Tak Building in Wan Chai. Photo: Jonathan Wong
Organisers of a craft market held yesterday in two small rooms in a Wan Chai tower block said they hoped to continue the message of the Occupy Central protests.
The Yellow Market was organised by artists who believe their works, including yellow brass ribbons, will prompt citizens to continue the fight for democracy.
"People might think the umbrella revolution is a full stop, but to me it's more like a comma, there's more coming," said visual artist Yeung Sau-lun, who hosted the market in his studio.
The market is among the ways pro-democracy supporters are trying to keep the movement alive, including the "shopping", or gau wu, crowds in Mong Kok.
Next door to Yeung's studio, a group calling on residents to burden the tax office by paying income tax using multiple cheques provided rubber stamps to ease the process.
"This is a way people can express their anger and delay and overburden the government with paperwork to achieve universal suffrage," said organiser Franklen Choi, a community college lecturer.
Stamps on offer included the number 689, the number of votes cast to elect Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying in 2012.
Raymond Kwong, 50, has already used home-made stamps to split his tax bill into 2,500 cheques of HK$1 or $2 each.
"To speed up the process I deliberately went to the bank to change my signature to a simpler one," he said.
On the other side of the debate, Robert Chow Yung, a founder of the Silent Majority for Hong Kong and spokesman for the Alliance for Peace and Democracy, said the groups, which opposed Occupy Central, would meet soon to discuss their next steps. "I think we will not fade away," he said.
"But as to exactly what we will be doing, it will take a week or so until we come to agreement on how we will proceed."
Another group formed by Umbrella Movement volunteers, Umbrella Blossom, also seeks to continue the movement's spirit. It will organise community outreach every two weeks and visit small shops regularly.
The 28th of every month will be "yellow day", with different events to be planned.
The group will set up a street counter in Sham Shui Po today. "We will teach people how to make umbrella art and call upon people to register as voters," spokeswoman Lau Sau-yin said.
Pro-democracy locals march under police escort. Photo: K. Y. Cheng
Hong Kong's Occupy Central movement has inspired the younger generation in Macau to press for universal suffrage in their own city, young locals joining a pro-democracy rally say.
Nearly 100 young protesters took to the streets yesterday as President Xi Jinping urged Macau to strengthen education for the younger generation to safeguard patriotism.
The peaceful rally was organised by the New Macau Association to call for a fair and open political system.
High school pupil Mark Pang, 15, raised a yellow umbrella - a symbol of the Occupy movement - and said: "I don't want to be brainwashed."
Mark said he had been keeping an eye on Hong Kong's civil disobedience action and visited the Admiralty site earlier this month. But he added: "Having the right to elect our chief executive feels like a distant dream."
The protesters called on their government to roll out political reform next year and implement universal suffrage in 2019.
Form Six pupil Carsun Ho, 17, said Hongkongers were "brave and dedicated" in their pursuit of democracy.
Most Macau residents were conservative in their political outlook, Carsun said, but Occupy had aroused more awareness in society about political rights despite being little reported in the local media.
However, Macau pro-democracy lawmaker Au Kam-sun admitted the turnout was the lowest in recent years for such protests.
"Some people in Macau had started to worry and had reservations about universal suffrage as the Occupy movement dragged on without progress," Au said.
Xi was in Macau to inaugurate the fourth-term government and mark the 15th anniversary of the city's handover.
Another local political group, the Labour Party, took the chance to co-organise a march with a trade union that drew hundreds of people, mostly the elderly.
They urged the government to hold direct elections and build more public flats.
The party's deputy chairman, Lee Kin-yun, criticised the police for infringed their freedom by preventing them from marching on time.
Many of the elderly said they did not know why they were at the rally and refused to give their names. A 71-year-old woman admitted she was there only for the "gifts" given out by the union.
Pro-democracy campaigners should avoid lesser skirmishes where only the hardcore would take to the streets. Photo: Reuters
Cars now motor over the Admiralty expressway as though nothing has changed. The thousands of Post-it notes which constituted the Lennon Wall have been taken down, to be rebuilt one day in a virtual archive for posterity, to inspire street protesters of the future.
The mood at Admiralty during the forced retreat suggests many want that future to begin before the virtual paint dries in any archive gallery. Whereas "We'll be back" was the last-stand message at Admiralty, the pledge of Scholarism and the Federation of Students not to return in the short term makes sense.
At least in part, each protester is longing to take to the streets again, and the second stage of the public consultation on electoral reform, expected to begin soon, could provide a reasonable excuse. Aside from the politics, the spirit of kindness and sharing which so defined the protest community is reason enough to look forward to rebuilding Admiralty's tent town one day.
Anyone who spent time at the Admiralty protest site will know that it was a broad swathe of our community - not students alone - who sought competence, fairness and representation from Hong Kong's politicians. In the history of the special administrative region, the government has never looked so out of touch, and the police force has never been so tested.
In terms of integrity, among other things, both have lost out to a bunch of school kids, among other people. For 20 per cent of 2014, the political centre of the city was paralysed by extraordinary ordinary people of all ages.
Such thoughts should fester in government minds awhile, including throughout the second round of consultation, which is expected to last months. (The government has until July to introduce an electoral reform package for a vote in the Legislative Council.) Their week-to-week discussions and decision-making ought to include something new in the governmental process: "Is this what the public wants?" The new path set out for the democracy movement seeks to combat such malaise. Some commentators have emphasised that Hong Kong's socio-economic problems are more pressing than democratic reform. The poor grow relatively poorer, housing costs are unaffordable for most, and the public education Hong Kong children receive is low on quality. Collectively, such issues affect most Hongkongers, and, given meaningful political participation, the majority would not back policies favoured by big business and the ruling elite.
And the Hong Kong government has admitted as much. At least US presidential hopeful Mitt Romney acknowledged his error after his gaffe (in his 2012 campaign) that the 47 per cent of Americans who pay no federal income tax [because they are too poor] had a victim mentality of dependence on the government and should be ignored. Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, however, has stood by his remarks that free elections in Hong Kong are undesirable because they would bring "poor people" politics.
The new pro-democracy campaign plan urges the 2.3 million residents of public housing to pay their rent only at the last moment and tax payers to write cheques in tiny amounts: HK$6.89 or HK$68.90 have been suggested (in reference to the number of votes Leung won from the 1,200-member Election Committee in the vote for chief executive).
Such actions - which may appeal to many, in part because they are legal - spread the democracy movement further into the socio-economic arena and broaden its base. It's doubtful whether they would have the impact of street protests, but that option won't disappear.
The protest leaders recognise that the reality of a second coming of street occupation may well be of lesser consequence than the threat of it. The authorities know who to monitor and how.
Moreover, the strategy used to clear the protesters won't be such a fumble next time and they will set about it more decisively. The police will make fewer mistakes, and waverers would be less keen to offer the protesters sympathetic support - unless the timing of reoccupation has a solid basis.
Broadly speaking, the numbers of protesters on the streets ebbed away when weariness set in and sympathy diminished. Among the banners hoisted during the final stand, Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator was pictured alongside his mantra: "I'll be back". Rather than a half-hearted return over the next governmental gaffe, it would be better to pick the battle carefully and avoid lesser skirmishes where only the hardcore would take to the streets.
Wait for the probable disappointment at the end of the next round of consultations - or some other almighty blunder (past form indicates there's unlikely to be a want of opportunity) - then all and sundry will swamp the streets: We'll
all be back.
Paul Letters is a political commentator and writer. See paulletters.com
Most who took part in the protests were just exercising their rights. Photo: AFP
I wonder how the relevant authorities in the police force and Department of Justice are going to handle the legal aftermath of the umbrella movement. Start with the scale of the problem: something over 100,000 people took part at one time or another in what was clearly an unauthorised gathering or series of gatherings. Are we going to take them all to court?
Apart from providing lucrative work for thousands of lawyers, this does not strike me as a particularly attractive option. Our judges and magistrates - however patriotic the famous white paper may have rendered them - are not going to have time to deal with anything else for the foreseeable future.
Single out the leaders? That may sound logical but it does throw up a whole range of issues. For a start, who were they? Obviously not Benny Tai Yiu-ting and his cohort, who proposed the original Occupy Central idea. After all, how can you be called a leader if no one followed you? Let's face it - that was how things turned out.
A plan for 10,000 middle-aged people to lay down in the Central business district, arms linked, to be carried away peaceably by the police, turned out to be something completely different, done somewhere else and by other people. By the time the exercise began, our learned professor had become more of a follower than an instigator.
The students, then? The heads of their organisations were on television every night and being quoted in newspapers every day. And they were wheeled out to debate with the government. They were certainly the face of the movement, but had they really planned in advance what took place? Frankly, what happened on the Friday night at the end of the student class-boycott week looked pretty spontaneous to me, and it involved ordinary members of the public showing their support for the demonstrating students.
And are we really proposing to begin the healing process - bridging the social divide that everyone has suddenly noticed and agrees needs to be addressed - by locking up the next generation? It sounds to me more like a recipe for prolonging the breakdown in relations.
Moreover, as time went by, it became clear that nobody was in control of the situation on the streets. The traditional political leaders could come and go but, really, they were spectators, trying to surf the wave that had arisen without their leadership, and thereby recapturing some moral authority.
This reading is not affected by their hanging around to be arrested at the end. The difference between politics and show business is sometimes so slight as to be insignificant.
The authorities should focus on concrete acts which constitute a crime when shorn of their political context. If you set out to cause physical harm to others, that is assault and you should be prosecuted. If you picked up objects - or, worse, if you brought those objects to the scene - with the objective of causing damage to property belonging to others, then that is a criminal act and you deserve to be brought in front of a judge to answer for your deeds.
Most serious of all, in some ways, if you defied an order handed down by a judge, whether that meant ignoring an injunction or breaking the terms of your bail, then you have attacked the rule of law in Hong Kong. You may have said that was the very thing you were seeking to preserve, but your actions had the directly opposite effect and there must be a reckoning.
Within this very narrow ambit, the numbers being prosecuted will be relatively modest and they will only be punished for non-political activities. That is how it should be in a free society.
The rest were just exercising their democratic rights.
Mike Rowse is managing director of Stanton Chase International and an adjunct professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. [email protected]
Re: Hong Kong Students indefinite hunger strike secrets revealed
Hong Kong's Occupy protests did not end with a loss, says co-founder Benny Tai
Benny Tai says there has been 'solid growth' in support for movement which has highlighted the need for change to democratic structure
Occupy co-founder Benny Tai says he now realises he is not good at fighting in the streets and sometimes felt he did not fit in at protest sites. He says he will focus on contributing ideas. Photo: Jonathan Wong
The Occupy Central campaign has not backfired despite recent polls showing support for Beijing's reform framework, the movement's co-founder says.
In an interview with the South China Morning Post reviewing the impact of the 79 days of protest, Benny Tai Yiu-ting said that the campaign had, in fact, widened the support base of the pro-democracy camp.
"Occupy has achieved the goal of social awakening far more than was intended," Tai said.
"Occupy did not end with a loss - we have expanded the pro-democracy camp."
He said that the tough stance taken by Beijing towards Hong Kong could be "a strategic consideration" and he has not lost hope for genuine reform in the next few years.
Speaking a week after police cleared the Occupy base camp in Admiralty, Tai said he was aware that some polls had shown that public sentiment against Beijing's stringent reform framework handed down in August for the 2017 chief executive election - the decision that triggered the protests - had waned slightly.
Protesters blocked Admiralty
"It is true that towards the end, more people became anti-Occupy because they found it went on too long. But they did not object to civil disobedience or universal suffrage," said Tai, who co-founded the movement which eventually deviated from his script as the leadership shifted to students and the protest was prolonged.
On the contrary, he said that a recent Chinese University poll showed that supporters of Occupy accounted for more than 30 per cent of respondents, which he said was "solid growth" from the lack of positive response to the article last year in which he floated the idea of Occupy.
"Those in power will have to face these new sentiments and the reality that governance is difficult. Either you give Hongkongers some sweeteners for the economy, or you keep on the suppression, but both have failed to pacify people. There's got to be a compromise."
He said he had "no choice" in starting the mass sit-in, which seems to have toughened Beijing's stance towards Hong Kong. "The aim of Occupy was twofold: to put pressure on Beijing through threatening to occupy the roads, and to do social awakening. The first one proved to fail after Beijing handed down the August decision. So we continued social awakening through the act of occupation."
He said politicians were now aware of the need to connect with young people if they are to survive. "Hong Kong's future democratic movement will no longer be a vertical structure - there are no top-down relations and parties can no longer be the leader."
He sees a horizontal network, developed during Occupy, where different groups - parties, civil groups, students, internet users and even artists - share a common set of objectives and work in their own spheres of influence.
"Occupy has made me realise that I am not good at fighting in the streets. There were many times I felt I did not fit in," he said.
The law academic did not enjoy addressing the crowd in Admiralty, on nights when protesters were longing for emotional speeches from leaders.
"But I will not leave the democratic movement. I will focus on contributing ideas rather than occupying the streets," Tai said.
Nor will he run for election. He said he has been invited by pro-democracy parties to run in past elections. "If I was interested, I would have done it a long time ago," Tai said.
Causeway Bay Occupy site at Yee Wo Street. Photo: Sam Tsang
Occupy Central considered taking over Queensway and Causeway Bay in their original plan, although in the end it was the protesters who seized those areas spontaneously - one of them for only a short period of time.
Occupy organiser Benny Tai Yiu-ting revealed this in an interview with the Post last week.
The plan of the co-founders, as revealed earlier, was to hold a march from Victoria Park to Chater Road on October 1 and then camp on Chater Road overnight. They expected police to take action on October 3 following a two-day public holiday.
However, the scheme was actually more than that.
"At that time we were waiting for police to grant us a letter of no objection for the march. We decided that if police refused to do so, we would dash out from Victoria Park and sit on the road outside the Sogo department store and also Queensway in Admiralty," he said.
The founders also imagined occupying Connaught Road from Chater Road if police took no action to clear them.
In the end, developments forced them to change the script - moving to Admiralty and bringing forward the start date to September 28 to support students arrested for storming the forecourt of the government headquarters.
"Looking back, our plan was too conservative. Even if it was implemented, it would not have attracted as much public support," Tai said.
The academic has taken leave for the next semester starting in January. This was again part of the original script as he initially thought Occupy would not happen until next year.
Relieved that people have gone home safely, he will now spend the time writing a book on the causes and effects of the movement, including its impact on governance and rule of law.
At the beginning of the movement, the three founders introduced 10 people, including professionals, businessmen and a social worker, as staunch supporters of Occupy. Only two of them turned themselves in to police earlier this month.
Tai said he would not blame the absentees. "The original contract was about a controlled situation with a very short duration. But it turned out another contract was on the table."
Re: Hong Kong Students indefinite hunger strike secrets revealed
Hong Kong's religious leaders call for reconciliation after political conflicts
Need for 'bruised' city to recover from political disputes is at forefront of Christmas messages
Cardinal John Tong Hon said Christians are obliged to create a better Hong Kong for the future. Photo: Nora Tam
The shadow of the Occupy Central protests loomed large as religious leaders in the city called for reconciliation in their traditional Christmas messages.
Cardinal John Tong Hon, the head of Hong Kong's Catholic church, said that the city had been "an accommodating society" which accepted different opinions, voices and ways of expression. However, conflicts and disagreements have been spotted in families, schools, offices and among friends.
He added: "Recently, due to various social issues, our Hong Kong, our home, has been torn apart to a certain extent … all those issues have to be resolved, one way or another."
He said Christians were obliged to create a better Hong Kong for the future, and he hoped people would work to build a "free and democratic" city.
The Archbishop of the Hong Kong Anglican Church, the Most Reverend Paul Kwong, also began his seasonal message with the recent political issues. "These conflicts … have left Hong Kong brutally bruised and battered … terribly torn and tattered," he said. The city was "deeply wounded and traumatised" with damage extending beyond the economy, people's livelihood and the rule of law, he said.
Kwong urged people to restore broken relationships and re-establish mutual trust and understanding between individuals and between the government and the public.
A "genuine dialogue" with willingness to communicate and deliberate was essential for reconciliation, he said.
"What is at stake is the reconstruction of a society that fosters effective governance in a strong community - it is only with both that our collective aspirations for a society, an electoral system, and democratic advancements are better."
Apart from reconciliation, an umbrella and a warm jacket might be necessary during the Christmas holidays.
The Observatory is forecasting that the weather on Christmas and Boxing Day will be cloudy with rain patches and the temperature will hover around 15 degrees Celsius. But tomorrow, Christmas Eve, is expected to be warm and occasionally sunny during the day.
The Observatory recorded a drop in temperature yesterday, with readings around 13 degrees.
It is expected to get warmer today, with temperatures gradually increasing to about 17 degrees.
The search for meaning in life, for self-identity and self-esteem is a time-intensive activity. Photo: EPA
Many reports describe the Occupy Movement as a conflict between two generations: an older generation that is more materialistic and willing to compromise and a younger generation that is more idealistic and confrontational.
This conflict is influenced by both life cycle differences and secular trend differences.
The life cycle difference is summed up by the idea that young and old differ because the young have yet to live through the life experiences of their parents or grandparents.
But this is not how Chester Tsang, a 21-year-old part-time student, who participated in the Occupy Movement, sees it: “It isn’t only about fighting for democracy, we have different social needs. My generation, we care about social justice. My mother’s generation cared about a roof over their heads. My grandmother’s generation, they just wanted warm food on their table.”
This second kind of generational difference is the result of economic growth. Secular economic trends drive each generation to want different things and to behave differently.
The young are often too eager to view rising inequality as the product of social injustices
The phenomenal economic growth of the past two centuries has increased the amount of time and money each person now possesses. From the years 0 to 1850, GDP per capita rose only slightly from US$467 to US$666. By the year 2000, it had shot past US$10,000.
The modern era has also brought better health so people live longer. Life expectancy in Hong Kong was 63.2 in 1960 and 83.3 in 2010, and is expected to keep rising. Other societies, such as the United States, mainland China and Taiwan, have similarly seen big leaps in life expectancy (see table).
The longer life span means people can now spend less time at paid work and more time in leisure activities. Since all leisure activities require work effort, including meditation, so it is appropriate to view them as voluntary work without pay, whose reward is psychic income. Such voluntary work time has increased substantially for those born between 1960 and 2010, largely due to increases in life expectancy.
In Hong Kong, the share of time available for voluntary work has risen from 29 per cent for the generation born in 1960 to 50 per cent for those born in 1985. Singapore, Taiwan, mainland China, and to a lesser degree the US have also seen increases.
The average number of years in schooling has also increased for 15 to 24 year olds, which means the younger generations in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore have more education, greater life expectancy, greater economic prosperity and far more discretionary time than their parent’s generation. This has created opportunities for them to explore different aspirations for which self-realisation becomes the critical issue.
However, this quest is being confounded by rising life expectancy. Around a third of the population will be over the age of 65 in less than a decade, enough to prevent entry into the best jobs if elderly professionals and executives choose to stay at work.
This will have economic and political consequences, since younger workers are a major source of new ideas and they are growing frustrated, especially over rising inequality. The young are often too eager to view rising inequality as the product of social injustices, although it is itself largely a by-product of rapid economic growth.
A similar situation may soon appear in mainland China as life expectancies continue to rise, while economic growth adjusts to a slower trajectory. The younger generation will also be searching for self-realisation as their share of available discretionary time for voluntary work rises further.
The search for meaning in life, for self-identity and self-esteem is a time-intensive activity that the younger generation in Hong Kong can now afford. Their parents can only afford to do so in their retirement thanks to an unexpectedly long life.
Richard Wong Yue-chim is Philip Wong Kennedy Wong Professor in Political Economy at the University of Hong Kong
Public must unite behind police force, which is still Asia's finest
Maintaining law and order in a free society like Hong Kong is not easy. Take the Occupy protests as an example. Caught between assertive pro-democracy protesters and an unyielding government, the police had no choice but to step in at times during the 79 days of stand-off. True, there were some incidents in which an individual officer's conduct may have been questionable, but the force did, by and large, exercise restraint and discipline. Whether the police could have done a better job is open to debate. At a press conference earlier, Commissioner Andy Tsang Wai-hung said the difficulty and complexity of the operations were unprecedented. He maintained that his team had remained tolerant and professional.
That Occupy came to an end without major injuries owes much to police restraint. The officers were basically just keeping an eye on the unlawfully occupied areas most of the time. The non-resistance approach adopted by protesters during the final stages of clearance also contributed to a relatively peaceful ending.
Regrettably, reason does not always prevail. There were at least nine occasions during which occupiers got rowdy and had to be subdued by force. Emotion sometimes ran so high that some officers apparently acted out of line. But overall, the use of force was kept to a minimum.
Despite some setback to its image, our police are still among the finest in Asia. Although those who are dissatisfied with the force jumped from 19 per cent in June to 27 per cent last month, the majority of the people are still happy with its performance. If the response to the latest police recruitment exercise is anything to go by, many still have faith in the profession.
Tsang said the police were aware that certain sectors in the community were dissatisfied with their actions. There are more than 1,900 related complaints, some of which were lodged by the aggrieved or other affected parties. That said, the force has also been flooded with praise and commendations. It shows that there are polarised views about police performance in handling the Occupy protests.
Law enforcement is not about pleasing everyone. The police are expected to discharge their duties impartially and with professionalism. Some members of the public should also drop their hostility towards the police. The force cannot do its job properly if it continues to be torn between the so-called yellow and blue ribbon camps.
Protesters hold up a yellow umbrella and banners demanding true universal suffrage in Mong Kok. Photo: Chris Lau
Hong Kong police arrested 12 people after brief clashes with protesters in Mong Kok between Wednesday night and early Thursday morning, as a large crowd carrying yellow-coloured accessories gathered and chanted slogans demanding true universal suffrage.
Police said on Thursday that they had arrested 10 men and two women, aged between 13 and 43, for offences including assaulting police officers and obstructing police duty, as well as vandalism and disorderly conduct. Two police officers were injured in the operation.
Another splinter group of demonstrators led disruption around Causeway Bay, the popular shopping district, as last-minute Christmas shoppers, tourists and late-night partygoers walked into the festive protests.
Earlier on Wednesday evening, pro-democracy activists kicked off Christmas rallies on the eve of the Chief Executive's trip to Beijing on Thursday.
Some 250 protesters started the march from Southorn Playground in Wan Chai and proceeded slowly towards Civic Square outside the government headquarters. The small but vocal crowds carried 30ft-long universal suffrage banners and chanted slogans for the same cause along the way.
As the night wore on, another group of about 500 "shopping" protesters gathered at the junction with Shantung Street in Mong Kok, and later proceeded to Argyle Street. The crowd went back and forth throughout the night.
Some held yellow umbrellas, while others raised yellow crosses bearing the words "I want true election" - the slogan which they also yelled.
A brief ruckus between police and protesters broke out on the pavement of Argyle Street near New Town Mall as police tried to apprehend a man for allegedly pushing people.
A baton was raised, but not used as the small team of officers surrounded by protesters was able to find their way out after tensions subsided.
As the mobile demonstration lasted into the early hours of Christmas Day, several protesters were handcuffed and taken away.
Police tackle a young protester to the ground. Photo: SCMP Pictures
The most violent clash took place on Shantung Street later in the night, when three police officers allegedly smacked a young male protester in the head and pinned him down on the ground. A blood stain, presumably from the young man’s injury, was left at the scene after police hauled him away.
One witness, a woman who gave only her last name, Wong, said the man was among a crowd which helped two women flee the scene after they got in a verbal argument with police.
Wong said the women left, but the young man was tackled by the police.
Several times the police unfurled yellow flags, warned protesters that they were taking part in an illegal assembly and would face prosecution.
Crowd control measures were also implemented to bar people, both protesters and pedestrians, from crossing Argyle Street.
Officers on duty also reminded protesters via megaphone to follow the traffic lights, as protesters in the area had previously sought to stall traffic by dropping coins on the road and picking them up, or crossing the road slowly.
But nurse Kathy Ho, in her 20s, remained undeterred. "My Christmas wish is to have a real election," she said.
Protesters attempted at least once to retake their previous stronghold of Nathan Road, which they occupied for more than two months during Occupy, but to no avail.
A policeman raises a baton to warn off protesters. Photo: Chris Lau
In Causeway Bay, hundreds of protesters gathered to watch a banner calling for universal suffrage unfurled on top of the clock tower in Times Square. Police monitoring the gathering swiftly pulled down the banner, which led to jeers and outbreaks of singing, but officers were unable to arrest anyone as they were on private property.
Kelu Fritz Craven, from Students Awaken, a co-organiser of the authorised march from Wan Chai to the government headquarters, said: "We want to remind people that we want true universal suffrage... and that the Umbrella revolution still continues.
"After the umbrella revolution not many people [were] doing anything to organise more activities to wake up people to attract attention on this topic."
The student-led group managed to unfurl a banner onto Lennon Wall outside the government office, saying "Do not forget our original purpose of Christmas Eve. Students awaken forever. Hold the yellow umbrella."
Hundreds of police officers lined the route from Hennessy Road and Queensway in Admiralty, containing protests with minimal traffic disruption.
Last-minute Christmas shoppers momentarily got tangled among the protesters escorted by police through Pacific Place along the bridge and under the Queensway Plaza.
Student Isabel Fung Yau-fong, 20, said: "Occupy Central hasn't ended and the story continues. We hope we can find ways like this to express our point of view.
"We don't want to have people think we've finished. Our true goal is still genuine universal suffrage."
Arizona Ma Chung-Yee, 38, a doctor, explained she was disappointed with the government's policies favouring corporations rather than individuals.
Ahead of the Chief Executive's trip to Beijing, she said: "I have no expectations for CY [Leung Chun-ying] at all. Every time he just keeps disappointing us. Maybe every time he sees Beijing officials we'll get some hints from their gestures or talks."
"This is a great way to spend your Christmas rather than going for a [family meal] or shopping," she added.
