Hong Kong authorities and pro-democracy protesters yesterday held their first talks aimed at ending weeks of rallies that have paralysed parts of the territory, after its leader ruled out major reforms.
Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying (梁振英), in an interview late on Monday, said open elections for his successor as demanded by demonstrators would result in the largest sector of society — the territory’s poor — dominating the electoral process.
However, hours before the talks began, he raised the prospect of limited reforms — offering protesters an olive branch after more than three weeks of rallies and roadblocks in the financial hub. Several major intersections in the semi-autonomous southern Chinese territory have been paralyzed since Sept. 28 by mass rallies demanding free elections, in one of the biggest challenges to Beijing’s authority since the Tiananmen pro-democracy protests of 1989.
Photo: Reuters
“I hope this dialogue can calm the relatively tense atmosphere in society,” Hong Kong Chief Secretary Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) said in her opening remarks yesterday as the talks got under way at a medical college.
As part of promised constitutional reforms, China has offered Hong Kongers the chance to vote — for the first time — for their next chief executive in 2017. However, only those vetted by a 1,200-strong committee loyal to Beijing will be allowed to stand for election — a proposal activists have labeled a “fake” democracy.
Under the current system the committee directly elects the leader.
“When 5 million eligible voters directly vote for the chief executive through one-person-one-vote, no matter which way you look at it, it is much more democratic than having the leader chosen by a 1,200-strong committee,” Lam added.
“The government’s direction of development ... is not democratic, equal, open and is not an improvement,” said Alex Chow Yong Kang (周永康), secretary-general of the Hong Kong Federation of Students, one of the groups leading the protests.
Chow, wearing a black T-shirt with the words “Freedom now” and accompanied by four other student leaders, demanded that the public should have the right to nominate candidates for the 2017 chief executive election.
“The Hong Kong people’s demands for the city’s future constitutional development are very simple — civil nominations. We dont want pre-selected candidates,” Chow said.
However, Lam said Hong Kong must work within the framework provided by Beijing.
“Hong Kong is not an independent country; it cannot decide its political system on its own,” she said.
Leung, in an interview yesterday afternoon with Agence France-Presse and other media, said he was open to creating a more democratic committee to vet candidates for his successor.
He said that while Beijing would not back down on vetting his successor, the committee tasked with selecting those candidates could become “more democratic.”
The offer is still a long way from meeting the core demands of protesters, but Leung’s comments were the first indication of a potential negotiating point.
Prior to the talks, Leung said open elections would result in the territory’s many poor dominating politics, as he ruled out democratic reforms.
In an interview with foreign media, carried in the Wall Street Journal and the International New York Times hours before talks were due to start, Leung said free elections were impossible.
Leung, whose resignation protesters have demanded, said if leadership candidates were nominated by the public then the largest sector of society — the poor — would likely dominate the electoral process.
“If it’s entirely a numbers game and numeric representation, then obviously you’d be talking to the half of the people in Hong Kong who earn less than US$1,800 a month,” he said in the interview.
The protests are taking place against a backdrop of rising inequality and soaring housing costs that leave many young people with little prospect of renting, let alone buying, their own homes in a city with one of Asia’s widest wealth gaps.
RETHINK? The defense ministry and Navy Command Headquarters could take over the indigenous submarine project and change its production timeline, a source said Admiral Huang Shu-kuang’s (黃曙光) resignation as head of the Indigenous Submarine Program and as a member of the National Security Council could affect the production of submarines, a source said yesterday. Huang in a statement last night said he had decided to resign due to national security concerns while expressing the hope that it would put a stop to political wrangling that only undermines the advancement of the nation’s defense capabilities. Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) yesterday said that the admiral, her older brother, felt it was time for him to step down and that he had completed what he
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft