truedemocracy.net/index.htm FOR more than 30 years now, political activists in Hong Kong have been agitating for a more democratic political system. On August 31st China made it plain they will not get their way. “Take it or leave it,” is how the South China Morning Post summed up China’s position. Not wanting to take it, several thousand people attended a rally in protest that rainy Sunday evening. They heard Benny Tai Yiu-ting, a mild and thoughtful academic, declare a new “era of resistance” and civil disobedience. He is one of the organisers of the “Occupy Central” movement, which is planning waves of street protest, culminating in the peaceful “occupation” of Hong Kong island’s central business district. “The road of dialogue has come to the end,” he said. Months of debilitating confrontation are in prospect. Britain, as China never tires of reminding it, ruled Hong Kong for 150 years without granting it democracy. But in 1984 its Joint Declaration with China on the transfer of Hong Kong in 1997 promised the territory a “high degree of autonomy”. After the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 fear of China grew; democracy was seen as a way of ensuring Hong Kong’s freedom. China, for its part, always insisted that Hong Kong was an “economic city” and should not become a “political” one. Yet it is by far the most politically galvanised city in China. Its constitution, the Basic Law, promises “one country, two systems” and that the chief executive will eventually be chosen by “universal suffrage”, a goal deferred until 2017. On August 31st it became plain that this is to be universal suffrage, China-style: voters can choose whom they like, provided the party has chosen first. Under proposals put forward by China’s parliament, the National People’s Congress (NPC), no more than two or three candidates will be allowed, and they will need the endorsement of at least half the members of a “nominating committee”. This is to be modelled on the 1,200-strong committee that picked the current chief executive, “C.Y.” Leung Chun-ying, in 2012. An elaborately designed construct, it has a very simple purpose: to ensure “pro-China” votes have a built-in majority. The NPC’s proposal leaves no chance that a candidate will even need make the ballot against China’s will. Defending the NPC’s decision in press conferences in Beijing and Hong Kong, Li Fei, chairman of its Basic Law committee, insisted that “some people in Hong Kong can never be chief executive” because of their “confrontational” stance. The NPC couches the issue as one of China’s “sovereignty, security and development interests”. A senior Chinese academic has argued, bizarrely for a Communist, that full democracy would endanger that beleaguered minority, Hong Kong’s tycoons. The NPC proposal will fall unless it gains a two-thirds majority in Hong Kong’s Legislative Council (Legco). In this body, half of whose 70 members were directly elected, 27 seats are held by “pan-democrats”, or “pan-dems”, as those from a variety of pro-democracy parties are commonly known. They have pledged to veto it. Many had expected that the NPC would leave negotiating room to win over moderate pan-dems. That now seems unlikely. Claudia Mo Man-ching, a Legco member from the pan-dem Civic Party, says no pan-dem would endorse the NPC plan, for fear of being branded a “sinner of history”. How to stay occupied Mr Tai and his colleagues in Occupy are also cornered—and faltering. They had been looking for any excuse to stay off the streets. The whole idea had been to use occupation as the very last of last resorts, at the end of a prolonged process of “deliberative democracy” that involved public consultation and a “referendum” in June attracting 800,000 signatures in support of a more open electoral system. Had China wanted to leave the door open for compromise, it could have fudged details such as the nomination threshold. Instead, in Miss Mo’s words, “it has shut the door, the window, the fire escape and the back door.” China has given Occupy no excuse. Mr Tai this week admitted that “up to this point, we failed.” The movement abhors violence, yet knows that is a risk. Mr Li was heckled in Hong Kong (see photo above), and there were scuffles as police used pepper spray to disperse protesters. In a practice mini-occupation, following on from a 500,000-strong annual pro-democracy march on the July 1st anniversary of Britain’s handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997, over 500 people were arrested. But Mr Tai has admitted that the apparent hopelessness of the cause is eroding support for Occupy among some of Hong Kong’s “pragmatic” people. Occupy claims, however, that others have been motivated to join. Now it has to engage in serious planning. Whether acquiring portable lavatories—as it has done—counts is doubtful. It suggests the new era has hardly struck like thunder. Occupy is keeping quiet about its detailed strategy (if any). The Chinese and Hong Kong governments may still be hoping that the election proposal wins Legco approval. If it is rejected, the 2017 election will be by committee again. So, by urging Legco to “pocket it now”—take the one-man one-vote offer while it is on the table, and try to improve the system later—the government hopes the public will turn against the pan-dems. Occupy already has many critics. Even some democrats question a strategy that seeks to preserve Hong Kong’s uniqueness in China by undermining its very basis: the observance of the rule of law. Others have been swayed by apocalyptic propaganda about the disruption Occupy might entail—though many business leaders seem remarkably sanguine about the risks. China’s Communist Party has always had its supporters in Hong Kong—an odd alliance of business tycoons favouring stability above all and a well-funded, highly organised grass-roots network, including a strong Communist-front party, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong. A petition against Occupy attracted 1.4m signatures, though many were of dubious origin; similarly an anti-Occupy march on August 17th was well-attended, but many “demonstrators” had been bused in and paid. The Chinese and Hong Kong governments may be placing too much faith in Hong Kong’s famed preference for doing business over political struggle. After their long struggle for democracy, an older generation of activists has had enough and is no longer willing to play by China’s rules. They and many ordinary people are furious at the perceived debasement of Hong Kong’s institutions. The pressure grows Legco, never powerful, has degenerated into farce as frustrated radicals resort to rowdyism and filibusters. The press is widely seen as timid in its criticism of the Communist Party; cowed by a combination of pressure from advertisers and crude intimidation, such as a knife attack on a former editor earlier this year. The Independent Commission Against Corruption, the Caesar’s wife of Hong Kong law-enforcement, was, rightly or wrongly, assumed by some analysts to have a political motive for raiding the home of Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, a pro-democracy media tycoon, and the office of a pan-dem legislator just before the NPC’s announcement. The judiciary is also seen as under threat. In June lawyers marched in protest against a Chinese White Paper which listed Hong Kong’s judges as among those who must “love the country”. Even the postal service is under fire for refusing to distribute leaflets on civil disobedience. And the government itself hardly even claims to represent Hong Kong’s people, so staunch a propagandist has it become for the Communist Party’s plans. Angry youth (image not meet , therefore not included) *editors discretion* This popular anger is in danger of merging with a prejudice against “locusts”—the ever-more visible mainland-Chinese visitors to Hong Kong who crowd the underground, force shops to keep stocks of baby formula behind bars (so that they are not snapped up by tourists who are distrustful of mainland brands) and scandalise users of social media every time one of their toddlers urinates in public. The young, impatient of the limitations their parents tolerated, are less “pragmatic” than their elders. A survey earlier this year showed that dissatisfaction with life in Hong Kong was highest among young people, and that those aged 18-29 were most likely to describe themselves as “Hong Kong people”, rather than as “Hong Kong Chinese”. Chinese sovereignty has made the young especially conscious of Hong Kong’s distinctiveness within China. Student groups are among the fiercest proponents of democratic reform. One, “Scholarism”, was founded in 2011 by Joshua Wong, who was 14 at the time, to campaign against changes to the curriculum to make it more “patriotic”, ie, pro-Communist. Now Scholarism and student unions are organising protests and class boycotts. They will not easily be deterred, even by scare tactics such as armoured personnel carriers trundling through the streets, as happened late last month, or a warning from a former Chinese official that “blood will be shed” if Occupy goes ahead. Nor, however, are they likely to succeed. The pan-dems and business leaders alike share the hope that China will make concessions because it badly wants Hong Kong to thrive—as a matter of national prestige, as a model to Taiwan proving that unification with China need not be feared, and because of its huge economic importance. They point to 2003, an earlier period of turmoil in Hong Kong over the government’s attempt to introduce a law against “sedition” at a time of economic crisis caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). At that time China came to the rescue. It saved the economy with a deal giving Hong Kong firms preferential access to its market, and by allowing more Chinese tourists to visit. And it saw to the removal of an unpopular chief executive. In 2014 Hong Kong’s stockmarket has been faring well, thanks partly to the prospect of new arrangements next month linking the Hong Kong and Shanghai exchanges. But gloomier businessmen note that Hong Kong’s importance to China is dwindling. Its economy, 12% the size of China’s in 1984, is now just 3% of it (see chart). Its port, in terms of tonnage handled, is smaller than five others in China. And as China liberalises its financial system and internationalises its currency, the yuan, Hong Kong becomes less special. Moreover Hong Kong’s political significance may have changed. Chinese leaders must know that it is already too late to hope that people in Taiwan will look on it as a positive model. So, from being a possible example of how autonomy could work, it may now be a lesson in how nowhere under China’s sovereignty can be allowed a political system that might produce a challenge to the centre. China still wants Hong Kong to be a success, and it would prefer stability. But if instability is the price of having the final say, the party seems prepared to pay it. From the print edition: China (freely, democratically taken from the economist magazine [economist]) * Look under CHINA , or try ASIAN GAMES 2014 Asian Games en.wikipedia.org The 2014 Asian Games, officially known as the XVII Asiad, is a multi-sport event celebrated in Incheon, South Korea from September 19 – October 4, 2014, with 439 events in 36 sports and disciplines set to feature in the Games. en.wikipedia.org https://biblegateway/blog/2014/09/exploring-scotlands-bible/ There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: 2 the same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. 3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. 4 Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born? 5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. 8 The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. 9 Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? 10 Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things? 11 Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. 12 If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? 13 And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: 15 that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. 16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. 18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. 21 But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God. 22 After these things came Jesus and his disciples into the land of Judæa; and there he tarried with them, and baptized. 23 And John also was baptizing in Ænon near to Salim, because there was much water there: and they came, and were baptized. 24 For John was not yet cast into prison. 25 Then there arose a question between some of John’s disciples and the Jews about purifying. 26 And they came unto John, and said unto him, Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou barest witness, behold, the same baptizeth, and all men come to him. 27 John answered and said, A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven. 28 Ye yourselves bear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before him. 29 He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled. 30 He must increase, but I must decrease. 31 He that cometh from above is above all: he that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth: he that cometh from heaven is above all. 32 And what he hath seen and heard, that he testifieth; and no man receiveth his testimony. 33 He that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true. 34 For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him. 35 The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand. 36 He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. (John 3:1-36) youtube/watch?v=dIu01Mrazlc
Posted on: Sun, 21 Sep 2014 13:28:11 +0000