Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing (李嘉誠) yesterday urged pro-democracy protesters who have occupied the heart of the territory for more than two weeks to go home to their families, a day after 45 people were arrested following clashes with police.
Li, Asia’s richest man and chairman of property developer Cheung Kong (長江實業), also said in a statement that if Hong Kong’s rule of law broke down, it would be the “greatest sorrow” for the Chinese-controlled territory.
“Since the handover, the ‘one country, two systems’ formula has protected Hong Kong’s lifestyle,” Li said, referring to the formula under which the city has been run since its return from British to Chinese rule in 1997.
Photo: AFP
“I urge everyone not to be agitated. I urge everyone not to let today’s passion become the regret of tomorrow. I earnestly request everyone to return to their families,” Li said in his first public comments on the protests.
The “one country, two systems” formula allows wide-ranging autonomy and freedoms not enjoyed on the mainland 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 Hong Kong chief executive in 2017, which democracy activists said rendered the universal suffrage concept meaningless.
Li’s statement came a day after Hong Kong police arrested 45 protesters, as police cleared a main road in the territory that had been barricaded by pro-democracy demonstrators with concrete slabs.
Hong Kong police battling activists for control of an underpass in the dead of night yesterday sparked public anger after officers were seen kicking a handcuffed protester in the worst violence since street demonstrations for greater democracy began more than two weeks ago.
Officers armed with riot shields, batons and pepper spray knocked activists to the ground, dragging dozens away, and tore down barricades protesters used as roadblocks.
Outrage over their aggressive tactics exploded after local TV showed half a dozen officers taking the protester around a dark corner and kicking him on the ground. It is unclear what provoked the attack. Now TV showed footage of him splashing water on officers beforehand.
“Hong Kong police have gone insane today, carrying out their own punishment in private,” pro-democracy Hong Kong Legislator Lee Cheuk-yan (李卓人) said. “Hong Kong’s values and its rule of law really have been completely destroyed by police chiefs.”
Beijing issued its harshest condemnations yet of the protests, calling them illegal, bad for business and against Hong Kong’s best interests.
The central government has become increasingly impatient with the demonstrations, the biggest challenge to Beijing’s authority since China took control of the former British colony in 1997.
A front-page editorial yesterday in the People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist Party’s mouthpiece, condemned the protests and said “they are doomed to fail.”
“Facts and history tell us that radical and illegal acts that got their way only result in more severe illegal activities, exacerbating disorder and turmoil,” the commentary said.
“Stability is bliss, and turmoil brings havoc,” it said.
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