Hundreds of thousands of people in white shirts poured onto the streets of Hong Kong yesterday to vent their frustration at Chinese rule and challenge Beijing's refusal to allow them to elect their own leaders.
Waving green and black banners and carrying umbrellas to shield them from the blazing sun, protesters chanted "Return power to the people, fight for democracy" as they streamed through the urban canyons of the shopping district to government offices in the heart of the city kilometers away.
"I am here to tell Beijing that we want democracy, we want to elect our own chief executive," said construction worker Chan Sum-kee, 54, like many others protesting for the first time.
PHOTO: EPA
The main organizer, the Civil Human Rights Front, said two hours into the march some 350,000 people had taken part -- 50,000 above the expected turnout. The government provided no numbers.
A large turnout signaling dissatisfaction could embarrass Chinese leaders and heighten Communist Party fears about losing political control of Hong Kong.
Beijing also worries that demands for more democracy could spill over to China and undermine their one-party rule.
Pro-democracy politicians will try to wrest control of Hong Kong's top lawmaking body from pro-China supporters in legislative elections in September.
Comments yesterday suggested that many Hong Kong people were looking ahead to those polls.
A chambermaid at one of Hong Kong's top hotels along the route said she regretted not being able to join the march, and added: "Even though I can't be there today marching, I will certainly make my feelings known at the election."
Police said there were no disturbances but the intense heat took its toll, with at least one person believed to have suffered heat stroke as temperatures topped 34?C.
The demonstration, timed to coincide with the seventh anniversary of the former British colony's return to China, gave Beijing a taste of what they fear most, a mass show of public dissent.
But leading pro-democracy activists were quick to stress that what Hong Kong people wanted was more freedom under Chinese rule, not independence.
"We are here today to fight for democracy," veteran campaigner Martin Lee (李柱銘) said. "Not a single person here wants independence."
The white T-shirts symbolized hopes that China would one day offer the city greater democracy and freedoms. Other messages were more blunt.
"Hong Kong people's demands are being raped," one placard read.
Retirees and mothers carrying young children marched alongside protest veterans, highlighting the depth of feeling in favor of direct elections and dissatisfaction with China's hand-picked Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa (董建華).
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
INTENSIFYING THREATS: Beijing’s tactics include massive attacks on the government service network, aircraft and naval vessel incursions and damaging undersea cables China is prepared to interfere in November’s nine-in-one local elections by launching massive attacks on the Taiwanese government’s service network (GSN), a report published by the National Security Bureau showed. The report was submitted to the Legislative Yuan ahead of the bureau’s scheduled briefing at the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The national security team has identified about 13,000 suspicious Internet accounts and 860,000 disputed messages, the bureau said of China’s cognitive warfare against Taiwan. The disputed messages focus on major foreign affairs, national defense and economic issues, which were produced using generative artificial intelligence (AI) and distributed through Chinese
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
RSS