Huge Demonstration For Democracy In Hong Kong

[Annie]

Links and pics at site.

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2005/12/massive-democracy-protest-in-hong-kong.html

Sunday, December 04, 2005
Massive Democracy Protest in Hong Kong

THE MASSIVE TURNOUT IS SEEN AS AN EMBARASSMENT TO HONG KONG LEADERS,
VIDEO HERE

Thousands take to the streets in Hong Kong to protest for democracy.

Protesters march as others gather at Victoria Park to demand universal suffrage in Hong Kong December 4, 2005. Tens of thousands marched in Hong Kong on Sunday for the right to directly elect their political leaders and to protest against a package of electoral reforms pushed by the city's chief executive and Beijing. (REUTERS/Stringer)


Tens of thousands of people march on a Hong Kong downtown street to pressure the government to speed up political reforms that would allow voters to pick the city's leader and entire legislature. Sunday, Dec. 4, 2005.(AP Photo/Vincent Yu)

Larger than expected turnouts were reported at the protest march for democracy in Hong Kong today:

Tens of thousands of people have joined a demonstration in Hong Kong calling for a fully-democratic political system in the Chinese autonomous territory.
Trade unions, activists and civic groups marched with ordinary citizens, some carrying banners denouncing China.

China has refused to allow people in Hong Kong to vote to elect their next leader in two years time.

Pro-democracy campaigners say if that remains the case, they should be given a timetable and told when they will be allowed to vote for who rules them.

One lawmaker, Lee Cheuk Yan, said people "are very much disappointed" over the long wait.

But the chairman of Hong Kong's General Chamber of Commerce, David Eldon, said pushing for a timetable was not that important.

Demonstrators carried signs mocking the Communist rulers.
Protesters, demanding universal suffrage, carry a cartoon mocking Chinese officials as they march past the Causeway Bay shopping district in Hong Kong December 4, 2005. Tens of thousands marched in the territory on Sunday for the right to directly elect their political leaders and to protest against a package of electoral reforms pushed by the city's chief executive and Beijing. (Bobby Yip/Reuters)

Protesters are calling the government's proposals "bird cage reforms":

Sunday's protest evoked memories of July 2003, when an economic slump and disaffection with the then chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa, drew half a million people on to the streets of the former British colony -- one in fourteen residents.

"Donald Tsang is a good leader, but he's only elected by 800 people, which means he only has to please them," said Andrew Wong, 40, who works for an export business. "I've brought my five-year-old daughter here to teach her what democracy is."

Walking among banners that read "You want a clown or a chief executive?" and "Oppose bird-cage political reform," Paul Tsang, 83, said Hong Kong lacked direction without a plan for democracy.

"Early in the morning, you wake up with a schedule, to eat breakfast and do things during the day," the retired army officer said. "It's ridiculous to do something without a schedule."

Anson Chan, who was Tung's powerful head of the civil service for four years after he took over from British governor Chris Patten in 1997, joined a pro-democracy march for the first time.

"I just feel there are moments in one's life when you have to stand up and be counted," she told reporters.


Tens of thousands of people take part in a pro-democracy march in the streets of Hong Kong, 04 December 2005, to demand the full democracy that was promised when Britain handed its crown-jewel colony back to China eight years ago. Frustrated with the limited reforms proposed by the city's Beijing-appointed leader, Chief Executive Donald Tsang, marchers thronged the streets in the biggest show of public anger since he took office in June, 2005. (AFP PHOTO/SAMANTHA SIN/ Getty Images)

Hong Kong officials met with Beijing officials on Friday to discuss the strategy for democratic changes.

Robert Mayer at Publius Pundit has more on the demonstration today.

posted by Gateway Pundit at 12/04/2005 0900 AM

 

[NATO AIR]

I had to figure a way to get online and add to this post
My girlfriend attended and says it was a watershed moment for Hong Kong, especially because the protest was less of an attack on the chief executive (Mr. Tsang) than on the inept communist system itself.

This is the future of the Chinese people, at least those on the coast, if they choose to embrace reform and capitalism (which they seem to be). Only the greed and arrogance of the crypto tyrants in charge can prevent this from taking place in the coming decades.

from CSM:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1205/p01s02-woap.html

Major Hong Kong protest

Pro-Democracy activists filled the streets on Sunday calling for one man, one vote.

By Robert Marquand | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

HONG KONG – Reports that this city's democracy movement was dead appear to have been greatly exaggerated.

An unexpected turnout of as many as 250,000 marchers here Sunday is a clear repudiation of pro-Beijing policies that would stall if not kill democratic aspirations in Hong Kong. It also speaks to the vibrancy of a grass-roots democratic awakening that had been slumbering in China's most developed commercial city. Had Sunday's turnout been low, it could have sunk the democracy movement.

The protest, which filled Hong Kong's downtown on this breezy afternoon, was sparked by a proposal that would indefinitely delay a much-desired introduction of a "one man, one vote" system. It was also fed by statements from Hong Kong tycoons that the city wasn't mature enough to govern itself.

The march was a culmination of growing polarization between popular desire for speedy democracy and the Beijing-backed government of Donald Tsang. It sets the stage for future collisions between Tsang and the democrats.

All sides were calling Dec. 4 a "crossroads." Indeed, Sunday's march may prove as significant as the July 1, 2003, march of 500,000 residents that ultimately drove Mr. Tsang's predecessor out of office and gave birth to a democracy movement centered in the legal profession.

Beijing, concerned with stability, has long been wary of a full-fledged democracy movement. The news wires of the official Xinhua news agency in Beijing did not have a Chinese-language report of the event, but an English-language version described "a few" protesters. Police stated that the number was only 63,000.

Unlike previous marches, Sunday's crowd was focused solely on democracy issues, not on social or pocketbook concerns, or attacks on their chief executive. Instead, many people identified the political system itself as a main grievance. Ipod-carrying students, parents, businessmen, and retirees - virtually all articulated specific democratic principles like universal suffrage. Later, Tsang remarked that demonstrators had expressed "passion," and said that he wanted to see universal suffrage "in his time." But his opponents charge that his proposals will severely diminish that prospect.

Crowds rejected Tsang's bid to reshape politics in a way that would expand the role of officeholders appointed by the chief executive - one way Beijing influences local politics. The package would double the 800-member committee that picks a leader and expand the 60-member legislature.

"Hong Kong people want no more [political] appointments.... For us to accept more appointments is a regression, it is not progressive," said a businessman in tennis shoes. "It puts us further from democracy, not closer."

"People are not here to oppose Donald Tsang," says Tony Tong, a tourism executive. "They are here to oppose the system."

By 3 p.m., thousands had filled Victoria Park's six soccer fields. They sang "We Will Overcome" in Cantonese, listened to a prayer by Roman Catholic Bishop Joseph Zen, and filed out behind mock bird cages symbolizing democracy behind bars. A mention to the crowd that former chief executive Anson Chan was among them brought a cheer. Ms. Chan is considered a strong democrat, but has stayed out of all protests. Marchers wore black or white, slapped stickers of a phoenix on their faces, and held signs like, "I am marching today so that one day I may vote."

By 7 p.m., thousands were still filing out of Victoria Park; a few weeks ago organizers thought the march would bring perhaps 50,000 people.

Thousands of participants wore yellow ribbons in honor of local journalist Ching Cheong, who was apprehended in China last spring. Mr. Ching, a well-known figure and a Chinese patriot, had crossed the border reportedly to obtain a manuscript of the writings of Zhao Ziyang, the former premier who was placed under arrest after the Tiananmen Square episode of 1989.

The terms of Hong Kong's constitutional document, the Basic Law, state that in 2007, the political system could be reviewed. Democrats have seen that as an opening to universal suffrage. But Beijing rules that out, and Qiao Xiaoyang, deputy secretary of the National People's Congress standing committee, last week called it a "mission impossible."

After Beijing removed unpopular former chief executive Tung Chee-hwa, the democracy movement seemed to lose focus. Tsang, who was given credit for helping Hong Kong escape the worst of the Asian financial crisis of 1997, is seen as highly competent. Yet while he is selling his new reform as if it had emerged from the democracy movement, few democrats believe this.

Audrey Eu, head of the Article 45 Concern Group, called Tsang's TV address last week, in which he insisted that Hong Kong people buy into his proposal in an all-or-nothing fashion, as "something like a threat."

"I would be for the reform proposal if it were truly decided by Hong Kong," said Chan Lo, a marcher who works in a shipping firm and was here with his two daughters. "But it exists under a frame that has been fixed by mainland China. Since this frame exists, I am not really deciding. My feeling is that Hong Kong people are mature enough to understand this."

Many business elites in Hong Kong have spoken disparagingly of rallies and protests by "rabble." Yet as Sin-ming Shaw, a well-known Hong Kong writer puts it, "These are smart, accomplished people.... This is the first globalized Chinese community. They live in an ... open economy that competes well with the best of the world. So to hear we aren't mature enough...it is ridiculous. It angers people."

 

[theim]

Communists are such a joke. Today I was going to lunch in the union and a bunsh of idiots recruiting for the Youth Communist League. Now I'm thinking: either these people are just stupid (communism ALWAYS turns into dictatorship), or they are genuinely evil.

I also frequent a forum besides this one, which is full of more lefties. It's so amusing when they say stuff like "Oh, Stalin wasn't a REAL Communist. Neither was Kim Il Sung. Or Mao Zedong. Communism isn't bad, because all the people who said they were Communists weren't real Communists, just tyrants and murderers." In short, the modern college Communist line is: "Every Communist who has gotten into a position of power has become a Fascist. So because we don't like Fascists, we must put Communists in positions of power."

I know this is nearly impossible to understand. It just proves they are either mentally handicapped, or evil.