Hong Kong Group Vows Fight Over China `Puppet' Poll Plan

Bloomberg News

Protest leaders in Hong Kong have vowed an era of civil disobedience that may bring chaos to the city as they accused China of betraying its promise to deliver greater democracy.

The activist group Occupy Central With Love and Peace said the time for negotiation had passed and it will carry out its threat to stage a mass occupation of Hong Kong's financial district, without specifying a date.

China, which seven years ago promised Hong Kong a form of universal suffrage for the 2017 leadership election, approved a plan that ignored key demands from pro-democracy campaigners and sparked an outcry over its plans to screen candidates through a 1,200-member committee before voters get to cast their ballots.

'Now we are told Hong Kong people will have one man one vote, but Beijing will select all the candidates, of course puppets, for you,' Martin Lee, 76, founding chairman of the Democratic Party in Hong Kong, told thousands of demonstrators at a rally last night outside the offices of Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying. 'So what's the difference of a rotten apple, a rotten orange and a rotten banana?'

China's plan angered pro-democracy campaigners because it gives the government in Beijing an effective veto over anyone not viewed as friendly to the Communist Party. Division over universal suffrage threatens to boil over after a series of mass rallies in recent months both for and against action to oppose the framework.

Hopes 'Dashed'

China's decision 'dashed the hopes' of even the most moderate pro-democracy advocates, Ivan Choy Chi-keung, a senior lecturer in politics at Chinese University of Hong Kong, said in a phone interview. 'It's clear that Beijing won't allow a pro-democratic candidate in universal suffrage,' he said.

The maximum number of contenders allowed to contest the poll will be set at two or three, according to the decision, a limit that has also upset pro-democracy activists.

'Today is the darkest day of the history of Hong Kong's democratic development,' Benny Tai Yiu-ting, co-founder of Occupy Central With Love and Peace, told reporters yesterday. 'I think now this is the end of any dialogue.'

Obedient citizens will now disobey orders as Hong Kong enters a new era, Tai told cheering supporters gathered amid drizzling rain at the rally late yesterday.

Veto Plan

Leung, Hong Kong's current leader who was selected by a committee, urged protesters to be peaceful and law-abiding, saying the development was a historic milestone for Hong Kong and China.

'We cannot afford to stand still on our constitutional development, or else the prosperity and stability of Hong Kong will be at stake,' he told reporters.

Leung pledged to hold a second public consultation before introducing a bill to the city's legislature early next year. He acknowledged it will be difficult to get the the two-thirds majority of legislators necessary to approve the law.

Some pro-democracy Hong Kong lawmakers, including the Civic Party's Ronny Tong, said the proposal would be rejected when it comes to the local legislature. To become law, the universal suffrage bill will require two-thirds of Hong Kong's 70-member legislature to support it, meaning the legislation could be halted by the 27 opposition members.

No Negotiation

'The pan-democratic camp won't negotiate,' Tong told Hong Kong Cable TV. 'A negotiation could send the wrong signal to Beijing that the democrats are willing to accept an election with pre-screening.'

The draft framework approved by the Standing Committee of the national people's Congress 'made a mockery of the public consultation process,' according to a statement from Hong Kong 2020, a group founded by the city's former No. 2 official Anson Chan. If the proposal is rejected, Hong Kong will continue to have its leader picked by a 1,200-member election committee.

Maria Tam, a Hong Kong delegate to the NPC, defended the proposal, saying in Beijing that chief executive candidates must get more than half of the nomination committee's vote because it has to be a 'corporate decision that follows the principle that the majority rules.'

The NPC decision states that the nominating committee will be 'broadly representative' and its composition will follow that of the 2012 Election Committee that selected Hong Kong's current leader, a body that pro-democrats criticized as being stacked with Hong Kong's business and political elite.

Demands Rejected

Public nomination of candidates -- a demand of some groups -- was also rejected as being against the the city's mini-constitution known as the Basic Law, Li Fei, the NPC's deputy secretary-general, said at a briefing in Beijing yesterday.

The legislation was a democratic development and some opponents failed to recognize the central government's governance rights in Hong Kong, Li said. The city reverted to China from British rule in 1997.

'The development chances that Hong Kong may miss because of this will not come back again,' Li said, referring to the possible rejection of the plan.

The Federation of Hong Kong Industries and Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce welcomed the NPC's decision, echoing earlier warnings from tycoons and business groups that protests will damage the city's reputation as a financial center. An illegal occupation of the Central district will 'rock international confidence in Hong Kong's stability,' Pang Yiu-kai, the chamber's chairman, said in a statement.

Protesters Chant

School students and grandmothers were among those gathered at the rally late yesterday and sat on the grass to loudly beat dishes and plates, while chanting slogans including 'fight for democracy,' 'disobey orders,' and 'never lower our heads.' Organizers said 5,000 people turned out, while police put the number at 2,640.

'We want to tell the world that we will never give up our fight,' said Joseph Cheng, one of the event's organizers.

After the rally finished at 9 p.m. local time, hundreds of people people marched toward a hotel where NPC official Li is scheduled to check in overnight after flying in from Beijing. Some skirmished with police officers en route.

'I'm here to support these students because they are the future,' said one of the marchers, Liu Shaoying, a 70-year-old grandmother. China's government has 'lied to us for 30-odd years and I don't think I will have another 30,' she said.

Mass Protests

'I don't know if Beijing will change their minds, but we have to take action,' said another protester, Philip Yeung, a 16-year-old secondary school student.

Li arrived at the airport shortly before midnight, telling reporters he would help people understand the decision at a series of events being held today.

'Beijing officials have previously talked with pan-democrats but that's a show of good-will and public gesture,' said Ding Xueliang, a professor of Political Science at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. 'But Beijing would not make a compromise. What if Shenzhen, which is not far away from Hong Kong also asked for the same thing?' he added, referring to a Chinese city just to the north.

To contact the reporters on this story: Fion Li in Hong Kong at fli59@bloomberg.net; Jill Mao in Hong Kong at mmao14@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Rosalind Mathieson at rmathieson3@bloomberg.net Neil Western, Greg Ahlstrand