By Ducky Paredes
WHAT is happenning in Hong Kong, where students mobbed the city’s leader as they took their anti-Beijing strike to government headquarters, where hundreds protested against China’s refusal to grant Hong Kong full democracy. This cannot end without an effect on the People’s Republic of China (PROC), possibly the last place on earth where Chinese Communism still reigns supreme.
Organisers said 13,000 university students launched a week-long boycott of classes, a strong showing that breathed new life into the democracy campaign which had originally been stunned by Beijing’s hardline stance.
The student protest marks the start of a campaign of civil disobedience against China’s plan to choose the nominees of candidates who will lead the former British colony. The students are hoping that Beijing will give the Hong Kong electorate full universal suffrage at 2017 elections that will choose their leader.
To show their anger at how the Communist regime in Beijing has been treating them, about a dozen students rushed towards Hong Kong’s leader, chief executive Leung Chun-ying, when he emerged from after holding a press conference.
Leung was hustled away while security officials forced the students back, escorting them from the grounds as dozens of media also joined the melee.
“This is a warning. Your actions have already severely disrupted order here,” police said over loudspeakers, while the protesters chanted: “Hong Kong belongs to us!”
Leung said at the press conference that authorities had “paid close attention to the demands for the election in 2017 by the university students” but that Beijing’s proposals were an improvement on the current state of democracy.
Alex Chow, chairman of the Hong Kong Federation of Students who challenged Leung, observed: “You can see that he has no intention of having a dialogue with the students.”
Chow threatened an escalation of the protest action if Leung refused to speak with students within 48 hours.
The park outside the Hong Kong government’s Tamar headquarters took on a carnival atmosphere as protesters trickled in under the summer sun, to attend a program including lectures on the lawns.
“The government officials, the legislators, they can look out their window and see us calling for true democracy,” 20-year-old political science student Ester Wong.
“This park has a lot of significance in Hong Kong protest movements, and we’re here to continue that tradition,” she said to hundreds of others under the shade of trees and tents.
The students are heartened by past successes, including the government’s 2012 backdown on a plan to implement patriotism classes which was abandoned in the face of mass protests outside government headquarters.
(Should Beijing back away from a confrontation with the students, this may begin the end of Communism as practiced by the Central Government. Thus, it is not expected that Beijing will give an inch to the Hong Kong students.
“Someone needs to take the lead in showing the government they’re wrong, and this time it’s up to the students,” says Ryan Lo, 19, a theater student.
“We oppose the Chinese government trying to limit the freedoms Hong Kong people deserve.”
Chinese political dissidents including Beijing-based Hu Jia called on the international community to take action to prevent a repeat of the bloody crackdown on the student-led Tiananmen Square protests.
“As widespread demonstrations grow against Beijing’s violation of its promise to allow universal suffrage, there is a danger the infamous 1989 massacre in Tiananmen Square could be repeated in Hong Kong,” said in an opinion piece from the former British Crown Colony in the Wall Street Journal.
Would Beijing actually allow another Tiananmen Square to happen?
(The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, commonly known as the June Fourth Incident or more accurately ‘89 Democracy Movement were student-led popular demonstrations in Beijing which took place in the spring of 1989 and received broad support from city residents. The protests were forcibly suppressed by hardline leaders who ordered the military to enforce martial law in the country’s capital.
(The crackdown became known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre or the June 4 Massacre as troops with assault rifles and tanks inflicted casualties on unarmed civilians trying to block the military’s advance towards Tiananmen Square in the heart of Beijing which student and other demonstrators had occupied for seven weeks.
(The Chinese government condemned the protests as a “counter-revolutionary riot”, and has prohibited all forms of discussion or remembrance of the events since. Due to the lack of information from China, many aspects of the events remain unknown or unconfirmed. Estimates of the death toll range from a few hundred to a few thousand.
(The protests were triggered in April 1989 by the death of former Communist Party general secretary, Hu Yaobang, a liberal reformer, who was deposed after losing a power struggle with hardliners over the direction of political and economic reform. University students marched and gathered in Tiananmen Square to mourn. Hu had also voiced grievances against inflation, limited career prospects, and corruption of the party elite. The protesters called for government accountability, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and the restoration of workers’ control over industry. At the height of the protests, about a million people assembled in the Square.
(The government initially took a conciliatory stance toward the protesters. The student-led hunger strike galvanized support for the demonstrators around the country and the protests spread to 400 cities. Ultimately, China’s paramount leader Deng Xiaoping and other party elders resolved to use force. Party authorities declared martial law on May 20, and mobilized as many as 300,000 troops to Beijing.
(In the aftermath of the crackdown, the government conducted widespread arrests of protesters and their supporters, cracked down on other protests around China, expelled foreign journalists and strictly controlled coverage of the events in the domestic press. The police and internal security forces were strengthened. Officials deemed sympathetic to the protests were demoted or purged. Zhao Ziyang was ousted in a party leadership reshuffle and replaced with Jiang Zemin.
Political reforms were largely halted and economic reforms did not resume until Deng Xiaoping’s 1992 southern tour. The Chinese government was widely condemned internationally for the use of force against the protesters. )
Will this end in another massacre like the ‘89 one did in Tienanmen?
“The United States and the international community share the responsibility to prevent another murderous massacre,” say the students.
Tensions in Hong Kong are at their highest in years, fuelled by rising inequality as well as Beijing’s perceived interference in the affairs of the semi-autonomous territory.
A coalition of pro-democracy groups, led by Occupy Central, have labelled the election restrictions a “fake democracy” and have vowed a series of actions including a blockade of the Central financial district.
Britain handed Hong Kong back to China in 1997 under a “one country, two systems” agreement which allows civil liberties not seen on the mainland, including free speech and the right to protest.
Obviously, the PROC never thought that anyone would have the gall to demand from the PROC that they install democracy, that the HK residents got used to during the British reign in Hongkong.
Having tasted democracy under the British, Hongkong will not easily accept a Communist dictatorship!
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