Hong Kong protesters are threatening to give the city's Beijing masters a taste of the thing they fear most, a mass show of public dissent.
Several hundred thousand people are expected to march through the streets next Thursday to demand greater democracy for the territory.
The protest will come exactly a year after about half a million people staged an anti-government rally in Hong Kong, shocking the Chinese Communist Party that traditionally brooks no dissent in China.
Beijing has shown greater tolerance lately. China's vice president and point man on Hong Kong affairs, Zeng Qinghong (
Hong Kong's government echoed his remarks on Thursday, pledging continued freedom of expression in the city.
Many in Hong Kong are angry after Beijing ruled out full and free elections in the near future and accuse China of breaking a promise to allow the city wide-ranging autonomy.
"Beijing has rejected universal suffrage, but we can't just sit and wait. We have to keep pressing, it is our right," said Saphire Ho, a sales executive who plans to join Thursday's march.
A large turnout will embarrass Beijing on the seventh anniversary of Hong Kong's return to Chinese rule and to heighten Communist Party fears that it could lose control of the city.
It will also be a barometer of popular support for pro-democracy forces before legislative elections in September. Pro-democracy parties hope to wrest control of Hong Kong's top lawmaking body from pro-China figures to strengthen their campaign for more political reform.
Organizers expect 300,000 people to demonstrate for the right to directly elect their own leader and all of their lawmakers from 2007, demands that Beijing rejected in April.
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