Beijing's vitriolic attacks on pro-democracy forces in Hong Kong to try to silence demands for more voting rights have dented residents' confidence in China's central government, a new survey shows.
About 43 percent of 1,045 people interviewed in the poll, conducted between Feb. 20 to 23, said they trusted Beijing, down from 50 percent at the end of December. Those who said they mistrust Beijing rose to 22 percent from 19 percent.
The poll coincided with an increasingly strident campaign by Beijing to muffle demands for more voting rights in the territory.
Researcher Robert Chung at the University of Hong Kong, which conducted the poll, said Beijing's rhetoric, including calling pro-democracy figures unpatriotic, could backfire.
"If our mainland authorities continue to equate patriotism with loving the Communist Party, it will have a very damaging effect on the image of the central government," Chung said.
Analysts say Beijing's increasingly hardline stance could prompt a sharp rise in votes for pro-democracy candidates in legislative elections in September.
If the pro-democracy candidates win more than half of the 60 legislative seats, they will be able for the first time to veto government policies and bring the administration to its knees.
The row is certain to escalate with three key pro-democracy lawmakers heading for Washington this week to address the Senate on the city's fight for more rights, a move which Beijing has condemned and which its supporters have labelled as treacherous.
Gao Siren (
A poll published by the Ming Pao newspaper found 49 percent of 502 people interviewed supported the lawmakers' visit to Washington.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
A new online voting system aimed at boosting turnout among the Philippines’ millions of overseas workers ahead of Monday’s mid-term elections has been marked by confusion and fears of disenfranchisement. Thousands of overseas Filipino workers have already cast their ballots in the race dominated by a bitter feud between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his impeached vice president, Sara Duterte. While official turnout figures are not yet publicly available, data from the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) showed that at least 134,000 of the 1.22 million registered overseas voters have signed up for the new online system, which opened on April 13. However,
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga