Hong Kong pro-democracy activists recaptured parts of a core protest zone from police early yesterday after hours of turmoil that the city’s police chief warned undermined order and jeopardized public safety.
Dozens of people were injured, including 18 police, in the skirmishes that raged through the night as several thousand protesters squared off again police in the densely populated Mong Kok area.
At least 33 people were arrested, Hong Kong public broadcaster RTHK reported.
Photo: EPA
Police used batons and pepper spray, and scuffled violently with activists, but they were eventually forced to pull back less than 24 hours after they reopened most of the area to traffic.
The protests have been going on for three weeks and pose one of the biggest political challenges for China since the crushing of pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing in 1989.
Hong Kong Police Commissioner Andy Tsang (曾偉雄) broke three weeks of public silence to say his force had been “extremely tolerant,” but had failed to stop protesters becoming more “radical or violent.”
“To these protesters: You may think that your illegal acts have prevented the police from going about our duties, disrupted our deployments and even forced us to retreat,” Tsang told a news conference. “Superficially, that may be the case, but let me tell you this: These illegal acts are undermining the rule of law, undermining [what] Hong Kong has been relying on to succeed.”
After police retreated, demonstrators swiftly stacked up barricades made out of packing crates and fences.
Tsang said the reoccupation of the area “seriously undermined public order and seriously jeopardized public safety.”
The protesters, led by a restive generation of students, have been demanding the Chinese Communist Party live up to constitutional promises to grant full democracy to the former British colony, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
Hong Kong is ruled under a “one country, two systems” formula that allows the thriving capitalist hub wide-ranging autonomy and freedoms and specifies universal suffrage for Hong Kong as an eventual goal.
However, Beijing ruled on Aug. 31 it would screen candidates who want to run for the city’s chief executive in 2017, which democracy activists said rendered the universal suffrage concept meaningless. The protesters are demanding free elections for their leader.
The clashes came just hours after pro-Beijing Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying (梁振英) offered talks to student leaders next week in an attempt to defuse the protests that have grabbed global headlines with scenes of clashes and tear gas rising between some of the world’s most valuable office buildings.
Hong Kong Chief Secretary Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) yesterday announced that talks between student leaders and the city government would take place for two hours on Tuesday.
The Mong Kok area was calm later yesterday, with the number of protesters much smaller as activists rested.
Police stood in formation away from the barricades.
Posters declaring “Reclaim Mong Kok!” had been plastered on shop fronts.
The protesters who remained were bracing for another bruising night.
Student Angel So, 20, said she was determined to stop police clearing the area again.
“We’ll keep coming back,” she said, as a friend, Terry Leung, nursed grazes on his arms and legs from scuffles with police.
Joshua Wong (黃之鋒), a bookish 18-year-old whose fiery speeches have helped drive the protests, was defiant.
“We will stay and fight till the end,” he said as he surveyed the crowd during the night, from on top of a subway station exit.
The escalation in the confrontation illustrates the dilemma faced by police in trying to strike a balance between law enforcement and not inciting the protesters, who have been out since late last month in three core shopping and government districts.
Besides Mong Kok, about 1,000 protesters remained camped out on Hong Kong Island in a sea of tents on an eight-lane highway beneath skyscrapers close to government headquarters.
Despite Leung’s offer of talks next week, few expect any resolution without more concrete concessions from authorities.
Japan has deployed long-range missiles in a southwestern region near China, the Japanese defense minister said yesterday, at a time when ties with Beijing are at their lowest in recent years. The missiles were installed in Kumamoto in the southern region of Kyushu, as Japan is attempting to shore up its military capacity as China steps up naval activity in the East China Sea. “Standoff defense capabilities enable us to counter the threat of enemy forces attempting to invade our country ... while ensuring the safety of our personnel,” Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. “This is an extremely important initiative for
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) today accepted an invitation from Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to lead a delegation to China next month, saying she hopes to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations and bring stability to the Taiwan Strait. “I am grateful and happy to accept this invitation,” Cheng said in a statement from the KMT chairperson’s office. Cheng said she hopes both sides can work together to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations, enhance exchange and cooperation, bring stability to the Taiwan Strait and improve people’s livelihoods. At today's news conference, Cheng said any efforts to
MORE POPULAR: Taiwan Pass sales increased by 59 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said The Tourism Administration yesterday said that it has streamlined the Taiwan Pass, with two versions available for purchase beginning today. The tourism agency has made the pass available to international tourists since 2024, allowing them to access the high-speed rail, Taiwan Railway Corp services, four MRT systems and four Taiwan Tourist Shuttles. Previously, five types of Taiwan Pass were available, but some tourists have said that the offerings were too complicated. The agency said only two types of Taiwan Pass would be available, starting from a three-day pass with the high-speed rail and a three-day pass with Taiwan Railway Corp. The former costs NT$2,800
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
RSS