Hong Kong ‘lucky’ China has not stopped protests, says CY Leung (Financial Times) Leung Chun-ying, Hong Kongs chief executive, speaks during a news conference at the Government House in Hong Kong, China, on Thursday, Oct. 16, 2014. Leung said his government is ready to meet with student leaders next week to discuss universal suffrage as he seeks to end three weeks of protests. Hong Kong chief executive CY Leung has warned pro-democracy protesters not to test Beijing’s patience, as he pointed to a possible compromise for ending the civil disobedience campaign that has lasted more than three weeks. In his first on-the-record interview with international media since the start of protests, Mr Leung said Hong Kong had been “lucky” that Beijing had not yet felt the need to intervene in the stand-off over electoral reform. “There is a thin line between what we do in Hong Kong and what [leaders in] Beijing think or might think they have to do. Now so far, Beijing has left it to the Hong Kong government to deal with the situation,” Mr Leung told the Financial Times, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal in a joint interview on Monday. “I think we should try our very best . . . to stay that way. Challenging myself, challenging [the] Hong Kong government, at these difficult times, will do no one any service, will do Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy no service.” Protesters first took to the streets on September 26 to demand changes to the way Hong Kong chooses its chief executive, its top politician. Under the present plan, around 5m residents will get to vote in the next election in 2017, the first time Hong Kong residents have enjoyed a “one man, one vote” system for the post. However, the candidates for chief executive are set to be screened by a nomination committee that critics fear will be unrepresentative of the Hong Kong people. Thousands of protesters, many of them students, have been staging sit-in demonstrations across Hong Kong – closing major highways and shopping streets to traffic and even blockading the chief executive’s office – to call for a rethink. The impasse has led to violent confrontations with police, and presented China’s central government with a full-blown political crisis. Protesters want the nomination process opened up to the public, something the Hong Kong government has repeatedly ruled out, instead urging people to take the “deal on the table”. “We are going to have universal suffrage in Hong Kong . . . that’s beyond doubt”, said Mr Leung, before reading out sections from a hardback copy of the Basic Law – a mini-constitution that governs the territory. “I appeal to the people of Hong Kong to adopt a pragmatic view of what we do in 2017. It may not be perfect in the eyes of many . . . [but] we can review the situation again [after 2017].” Talks are due to take place between the student group leading the protests and government officials on Tuesday, the first in what is likely to be a series of meetings between the two sides. Mr Leung stressed that these were not “negotiations”, but rather an opportunity for students to make their case directly to the government. “We’d like to listen to the students as to what they have on their minds, and what their proposals are,” said Mr Leung at his official residence. “We are all ears.” Mr Leung said that the make-up of the nomination committee – due to be decided during a round of public consultations later this year – might offer some room for manoeuvre in striking an agreement with the students. The current plan would use the 1,200-member election committee that chose Mr Leung in 2012 as a template. “There could be a compromise, somewhere in between, by making the nomination committee more acceptable to these students,” he said. In comments that drew sarcastic responses from student leaders, Mr Leung said over the weekend that protesters had been influenced by “external forces”, rhetoric previously seen in Chinese state media. While he would not be drawn on the details, Mr Leung made it clear that it was a genuine worry for his administration. “I didn’t overhear it in a teahouse. It’s something that concerns us. It’s something we need to deal with,” he said. “Hong Kong is [the] kind of society . . . that attracts a good deal of external interest in our politics. It’s the situation today, it has been the situation for a very, very long time.” Mr Leung has also faced questions from opposition lawmakers over payments worth £4m he received from an Australian property company during his tenure as chief executive, which came to light following an investigation by Fairfax Media. However he brushed aside any suggestions of impropriety, saying that the cash was “standard practice” as part of a non-compete agreement signed while still working in the private sector. He confirmed that he did not pay any tax on the payments as they were not considered salary.
Posted on: Mon, 20 Oct 2014 15:45:25 +0000
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