As surely as the red sun rises in the East, the Communist government of China announced in August that it would allow universal suffrage in Hong Kong when the next "Chief Executive Officer" of the SAR is elected in 2017. Just one catch though. All candidates for the office will have to be vetted and approved by the Communist Party of China. As they say in Harbin (where they actually do play hockey), the puck will be nailed to the stick.
The people of Hong Kong are not stupid. Although they never had universal suffrage in the days when HKG was a British colony, its people know how democracy should work, and what the Reds are "giving" them ain't it! So they've taken to the streets in their 1000s, in what started out as a peaceful protest. The "Occupy Central" demonstration turned into a near riot, as police assaulted the protesters with batons, pepper spray and teargas. As the picture shows, the protesters came prepared, raising umbrellas to deflect the noxious chemicals.
Leung Chun-ying, the po-faced incumbent CEO, surveyed the scene [That's a Chinese inside joke. Ed.] and declared the demonstrations illegal. The protesters were rioters, he said, and their demands for civic nomination of candidates for the position "lie outside the boundaries of the Basic Law" (Hong Kong’s mini-constitution).
Flanked by senior police officials as he spoke, Mr. Leung promised that protesters would be dealt with appropriately. The equipment carried by the special riot police on Sunday night suggests the authorities have access to much worse stuff than pepper spray and teargas, should they wish to use it.
Those brave enough to demonstrate for democracy and freedom -- most of them seem to be students -- may well fear for their safety, or even their lives. Remember what happened at Tiananmen Square in 1989! It's one thing to face up to cops on foot, wielding batons, but quite another to stand in front of a tank.
The big question today is how much longer the cat-and-mouse game between riot police and demonstrators can go on. As of the early hours of this morning (HKG time), police were still holding up warning signs, announcing that tear gas canisters would be fired, so giving protesters time to disperse and then regroup. That kind of "playing by the Marquess of Queensbury Rules" shouldn't be expected if Beijing sends in the so-called People's Liberation Army. PLA troops will likely to be brought from northern China, unable to speak Cantonese and less sympathetic than local police.
Mr. Leung is under intense pressure from Beijing to end the demonstrations before October 1st, when the Communist party celebrates the 65th anniversary of its seizure of power in power. Says William Lam (an old China hand) "If he can’t clear the streets and restore order he will be scolded by Beijing."
The last thing China's president, Xi Jinping, wants is to have one of the country’s most important cities in open revolt. The censors of the Great Firewall of China are working flat out to stop the spread of news about what is going on in Hong Kong. Key words have been banished from popular microblogging sites such as Weibo. [WWW is permanently blocked in China. Ed.]
The only thing worse than an openly defiant Hong Kong would be if protesters in other Chinese cities came out in sympathy. Unfortunately for Mr. Leung, he can't even begin to negotiate with the protesters, because he has nothing whatever to bring to the table. His masters in Beijing -- Mr. Leung does not admit publicly to being a Party member -- will not budge on their pronouncement about universal suffrage, which establishes a screening mechanism to ensure that only pro-Communist candidates need apply.
The Umbrella Revolution has already made a mockery of the concept of "one country, two systems", proclaimed when the British handed Hong Kong back to China in 1997. The people of Hong Kong aren't kidding themselves. The reality is one big country, one little "special administrative region" and only one system.
Further reading on WWW: "Church refuses to see tyranny of Chinese communism: Cardinal Zen"
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