Members of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party yesterday voted to proceed with plans to dissolve the party as its leaders first proposed in February, the party’s chair said.
The vote “means most of our members are willing to allow the Central Committee to take steps to dissolve the party,” said Lo Kin-hei (羅健熙), chair of the 30-year-old party that was once the city’s stalwart opposition force.
“This is not the final decision that the party is dissolving,” Lo told a news conference.
Photo: AP
“In the coming few months, I hope there will be another general meeting [where] we actually will get that motion into debate and vote,” he said.
More than 90 percent of the 110 or so attendees supported the motion to let party leaders deal with the procedures required for dissolution, such as accounting requirements.
Lo in February said that the disbandment was due to Hong Kong’s “overall political environment,” but declined to say if the group had come under pressure from Beijing.
Photo: AFP
The party is the latest civil society group to shut down following a years-long political crackdown in Hong Kong after massive and sometimes violent pro-democracy protests in 2019.
Four Democratic Party lawmakers were jailed last year for subversion under a Beijing-imposed national security law.
PRECARIOUS RELATIONS: Commentators in Saudi Arabia accuse the UAE of growing too bold, backing forces at odds with Saudi interests in various conflicts A Saudi Arabian media campaign targeting the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has deepened the Gulf’s worst row in years, stoking fears of a damaging fall-out in the financial heart of the Middle East. Fiery accusations of rights abuses and betrayal have circulated for weeks in state-run and social media after a brief conflict in Yemen, where Saudi airstrikes quelled an offensive by UAE-backed separatists. The United Arab Emirates is “investing in chaos and supporting secessionists” from Libya to Yemen and the Horn of Africa, Saudi Arabia’s al-Ekhbariya TV charged in a report this week. Such invective has been unheard of
US President Donald Trump on Saturday warned Canada that if it concludes a trade deal with China, he would impose a 100 percent tariff on all goods coming over the border. Relations between the US and its northern neighbor have been rocky since Trump returned to the White House a year ago, with spats over trade and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney decrying a “rupture” in the US-led global order. During a visit to Beijing earlier this month, Carney hailed a “new strategic partnership” with China that resulted in a “preliminary, but landmark trade agreement” to reduce tariffs — but
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) purge of his most senior general is driven by his effort to both secure “total control” of his military and root out corruption, US Ambassador to China David Perdue said told Bloomberg Television yesterday. The probe into Zhang Youxia (張又俠), Xi’s second-in-command, announced over the weekend, is a “major development,” Perdue said, citing the family connections the vice chair of China’s apex military commission has with Xi. Chinese authorities said Zhang was being investigated for suspected serious discipline and law violations, without disclosing further details. “I take him at his word that there’s a corruption effort under
China executed 11 people linked to Myanmar criminal gangs, including “key members” of telecom scam operations, state media reported yesterday, as Beijing toughens its response to the sprawling, transnational industry. Fraud compounds where scammers lure Internet users into fake romantic relationships and cryptocurrency investments have flourished across Southeast Asia, including in Myanmar. Initially largely targeting Chinese speakers, the criminal groups behind the compounds have expanded operations into multiple languages to steal from victims around the world. Those conducting the scams are sometimes willing con artists, and other times trafficked foreign nationals forced to work. In the past few years, Beijing has stepped up cooperation
RSS