China’s top official in Hong Kong made a rare appeal for pro-democracy protests to remain peaceful as a politician close to the central government warned it would send in troops if the demonstrations get out of hand, a report said yesterday. The remarks were made after thousands of people took to the streets on New Year’s Day to call for universal suffrage and for the release of jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波).
The march was largely peaceful until scuffles broke out as around 100 activists were confronted by scores of police outside the Central Government Liaison Office, the body responsible for the city’s ties with Beijing.
The group chanted slogans, banged drums, and tried to break through a police barricade. Peng Qinghua (彭清華), director of the office, warned that “radical” demonstrations would not be tolerated, the South China Morning Post said.
“While we respect citizens’ expression of various views and demands, we hope these expressions can take place in a rational and peaceful atmosphere,” Peng, who rarely comments in public, was quoted as saying in the report.
“If some actions which are too radical arise in the process, this is against the expectation of citizens,” he said. “We hope in the future, rational discussion can be conducted on major political, economic and livelihood issues in Hong Kong.”
Beijing loyalist and Hong Kong executive council member Cheng Yiu-tong (鄭耀棠) said the scuffle had shocked the central government.
“If the majority of people are like that, Beijing will have to send troops here,” the paper reported Cheng as saying. “The status of the central government’s liaison office in Hong Kong is like an embassy of the Foreign Ministry. You clashed with the office in this manner, this was very shocking to Beijing.”
Hong Kong’s pro-democracy politicians have campaigned for universal suffrage to be introduced in 2012. Beijing has insisted that a vote “may be implemented for the Chief Executive in 2017 and the Legislative Council in 2020.”
Hong Kong, with a population of 7 million, was returned to China from British rule in 1997. It has a separate Constitution guaranteeing freedoms not available to Chinese on the mainland, including the right to protest.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the