Hong Kong protest defiant in face of attack by opponents, stages massive Saturday rally

[Valin]

National Post:

Kelvin Chan and Joanna Chiu, Associated Press

October 4, 2014

 

 

People look at demonstrators gathered outside the Central Government Offices in Hong Kong, China, on Saturday, Oct. 4, 2014. Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying set a Monday deadline for opening access to government offices barricaded this week by pro-democracy protesters, raising the possibility of further clashes.

 

 

HONG KONG — Pro-democracy protesters were defiant in the face of attacks by opponents and warnings by the Hong Kong government to clear the streets, staging a massive rally Saturday evening in the downtown business district they’ve occupied for a week.

“Democracy now! Democracy in Hong Kong!” thousands chanted as speakers from the movement seeking wider political reforms for this former British colony urged them to persist in their campaign. The rally lasted hours, with participants at times clapping and cheering as a stream of speakers and singers addressed them and performed popular songs.

 

“We are not seeking revolution. We just want democracy!” said Joshua Wong, a 17-year-old student leader. “We hope there will be no violence,” he said. “It would be unfortunate if this movement ended with bloodshed and violence.”

 

After the rally ended, people grew nervous due to rumors that police would act to clear out the protesters in the middle of the night. But big crowds still filled the protest area after midnight.

 

(Snip)

[Valin]

China’s explanation for the Hong Kong protests? Blame America.
Anne Applebaum
10/3/14

More than 50,000 people have filled the streets of Hong Kong in the past few days, and at times the number has climbed higher. The photographs of these gatherings have shown a remarkably calm, remarkably disciplined crowd. Students do their homework on the sidewalk. Others stack up plastic bottles for recycling and sweep the streets.

 

That kind of organization is not unusual. In Kiev last winter — before the use of sniper fire turned the protests ugly — people would drive up to the demonstration, drop off food and then continue on to work. Something of that same spirit seems to be operating in Hong Kong. Local supporters donate food and water, which are then carefully distributed by protest committees.

 

To a Western audience, all of this looks very much like the work of what we would call “civil society”: unofficial, self-organized groups that have joined together to press for a political change that cannot be accomplished using normal political tools. The same forces have powered many street protests in our history, too, *from the March on Washington to Occupy Wall Street.

 

But is this what the government of China sees? Not necessarily. According to Foreign Policy, one widely read Chinese article describes the events in Hong Kong not as a spontaneous outpouring of public opinion but as a conspiracy of Hong Kong separatists, backed by “an America hoping to push [the movement] to its height.” With sideswipes at the National Endowment for Democracy and the CIA, the article goes on to accuse the U.S. government of causing “multiple troubles for China, making China unable to pay attention to its great power struggle with the United States.”

 

(Snip)

 

* Bear In Mind Anne is a Lefty

[clearvision]

China’s explanation for the Hong Kong protests? Blame America.

Anne Applebaum

10/3/14

 

More than 50,000 people have filled the streets of Hong Kong in the past few days, and at times the number has climbed higher. The photographs of these gatherings have shown a remarkably calm, remarkably disciplined crowd. Students do their homework on the sidewalk. Others stack up plastic bottles for recycling and sweep the streets.

I'm sure if we had a protest of 25&U citizens they would study and clean up after themselves.....

[Valin]

 

China’s explanation for the Hong Kong protests? Blame America.

Anne Applebaum

10/3/14

 

More than 50,000 people have filled the streets of Hong Kong in the past few days, and at times the number has climbed higher. The photographs of these gatherings have shown a remarkably calm, remarkably disciplined crowd. Students do their homework on the sidewalk. Others stack up plastic bottles for recycling and sweep the streets.

I'm sure if we had a protest of 25&Under citizens they would study and clean up after themselves.....

 

 

 

?

[Valin]

Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters face threat from criminal triads
October 05, 2014

Peaceful pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong are facing a new threat from violent factions associated with organized crime syndicates.

 

On Friday protesters were attacked by counter-protestors belonging to Hong Kong’s criminal triads. Protest leaders accused the government of inciting the violence by colluding with the triads to try and break-up their massive street protest which has forced government offices and schools to close for more than a week.

 

Police arrested 19 people during the violent confrontations, including eight with “triad backgrounds,” the BBC reported. Injuries were reported to 12 protestors and six police officers.

The triads have long controlled drug-running, prostitution and extortion networks but the BBC said in its report that in recent years the underworld groups have branched into more legitimate rackets like property development and finance.

 

Leaders of the Hong Kong Federal of Students said the triad-provoked violence had led them to shelve plans to sit down with the government and negotiate an end to the protests.

 

(Snip)

[Valin]

China Using Hong Kong's Uprising for Its Own Crises?

Francesco Sisci

October 7, 2014

 

 

In China, President Xi originally wanted to focus on the rule of law, aimed at eliminating corruption in the Communist Party and reforming the often overbearing state-owned enterprises. The center of the drama is not the streets of Hong Kong but in the hidden plots secretly unfolding in the corridors of power in Beijing. Who is using the students to undermine the enemy and buttress his position? The real target might be President Xi.

 

People in Hong Kong are said not to like mainlanders, a feeling warmly reciprocated. Beijingers often say: 'You in Hong Kong already have far more democracy than us, what else do you want?'

In the past few days, the situation in Hong Kong has created a new and unpredictable challenge to the overall stability of China. The two relatively fast and easy ways out of the siege that Hong Kong students have laid on the local government both bode ill for Beijing.

 

If Beijing were to crack down violently on the students, this could prove to the world that the 1989 repression in Tiananmen was not an isolated episode, almost an accident, as the official version practically goes, but a pattern of behavior unfit for a global superpower, and thus proof that China must be sanctioned and stopped.

 

Yet, Beijing may have a hard time now agreeing to some of the demands from the demonstrations. It has already made concessions to previous democratic demonstrations; namely, it scrapped its former plans for indirect elections of the head of the territory, and promised that after 2017 there would be more political reforms. If now, after just a few weeks, Beijing were to make further concessions it could start a never-ending game in which students in the streets of Hong Kong actually dictated the policy agenda to Beijing on matters like political reforms, extremely delicate for the future of the whole country.

 

Either outcome could then spark a violent internal power struggle at a time when many in the party are extremely unhappy because of the tough ongoing anti-corruption campaign. In fact, in China's devious and contorted politics, it cannot be ruled out that those opposed to the current party policies are helping and abetting the ongoing protests. In fact, problems in Hong Kong are bound to refocus the attention of party chief Xi Jinping at the next party plenum.

 

(Snip)

[Valin]

Xi Won’t Budge
October 15, 2014

Protesters in Hong Kong think they’re tenacious enough to wear down Beijing. But considering what President Xi and his National Security Commission reportedly discussed when they met last week, the protesters seem to be clinging to a vain hope. The AP reports:

China’s ruling Communist Party believes it has offered enough concessions to Hong Kong in the past, and will give no ground to pro-democracy protests because it wants to avoid setting a precedent for reform on the mainland, sources told Reuters.

The position, arrived at during a meeting of the new National Security Commission chaired by President Xi Jinping in the first week of October, appears to give Hong Kong’s leader little room for manoeuver as he seeks to end the crisis.

(The Diplomat makes the case for this too, citing additional and alternative CCP sources.)

All of this raises the question of whether Xi is willing to use military force to preserve the current order in Hong Kong. If the Chinese government sees victory for the protesters as a potential contagion, it will do whatever it must to stop it from spreading........(Snip)