Politics
A pro-democracy movement that has threatened to blockade Hong Kong's financial district has said Beijing "brutally strangled" its fight for full democracy and vowed to take action. Reuters writes:
On Monday, Hong Kong police used pepper spray to disperse pro-democracy activists after China's parliament had rejected democrats' demands for the right to freely choose Hong Kong's next leader at an election in 2017.
"We Hongkongers won't accept failure in our road to democracy," the Occupy Central with Love and Peace movement said in a statement emailed to reporters late on Tuesday.
Pro-democracy activists had threatened to lock down the city's financial district on an unspecified date unless China grants full democracy.
A Bloomberg report on Tuesday quoted Occupy Central with Love and Peace movement founder Benny Tai as saying support for the group had dwindled after Beijing's decision to rule out direct elections in 2017.
Sunday's decree capped months of blunt reminders from Beijing of who is in charge in the former British colony and drew immediate ire from pro-democracy voices in Hong Kong. The Wall Street Journal writes:
China's government has for years been contending with a democracy campaign in Hong Kong, a major international financial center. It has counted on support from Hong Kong's business elites and what local media have sometimes called a silent majority of locals more interested in steadily rising living standards than politics.
Democracy advocates, however, say Beijing has been infringing on the autonomy it guaranteed the city under the "one country, two systems" policy and have decried growing inequality and rising prices. They say universal suffrage—a one-person-one-vote system—would make the local government more responsive to the public.
