HK to report to the central government
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HONG Kong’s government said it hopes to have more talks with protesters following yesterday’s first formal meeting between officials and student leaders.
“Today’s dialogue will hopefully be the first of several rounds of dialogue,” Chief Secretary Carrie Lam told reporters after a two-hour meeting with the student leaders who spearheaded more than three weeks of rallies that have caused disruption in the city.
But Lam, who described the talks as “constructive,” said the government’s firm position is to follow the top legislature’s ruling that candidates for Hong Kong’s next leadership election must be nominated by an election committee. “If the students cannot accept this position, I am afraid we will continue to have different views,” she said.
Hong Kong returned from British to Chinese rule in 1997 under a “one country, two systems” formula that allows it wide-ranging autonomy and freedoms and specifies universal suffrage as an ultimate goal.
The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress in August allowed Hong Kong people to vote for their own leader in 2017, but said only two to three candidates could run after majority backing from a 1,200-person nominating committee. The protesters are demanding the central government allows “open nominations.”
Lam reiterated the position that open nominations are not possible under Hong Kong law.
“The students’ voices and demands have been clearly heard by the special administrative region government, Hong Kong society and the central government,” said Lam, seated on one side of a U-shaped table with four colleagues facing an equal number of student leaders.
“But no matter how high the ideals, they must be strived for through legal, appropriate and rational means.”
She hoped the students would urge protesters to disperse as it would not help solve disputes over constitutional reform.
Government officials also told student leaders that many others don’t share their views.
“We hope you would understand that there are a lot of people who are not in Mong Kok, who are not in Admiralty, many people at home who aren’t insisting on civil nomination,” said Justice Secretary Rimsky Yuen.
Alex Chow, secretary-general of the Hong Kong Federation of Students, said many Hong Kong citizens disagree with the decision of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee on August 31, and that an unfair method for the planned universal suffrage would lead Hong Kong to a society with a widening income gap.
The student representatives argued whether the decision could be altered or revised.
However, director of the Chief Executive’s Office Rimsky Yuen said that besides giving a green light to reform on the chief executive election, the top legislature also has the power to outline a direction for Hong Kong’s constitutional development at the second step.
Yuen stressed that Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China and the central authorities have a responsibility and power to handle Hong Kong’s constitutional development issues.
The government officials said they would send a report to the central government on the situation in Hong Kong and the protesters’ demands.
After the meeting, the students said they had yet to decide whether to hold further talks.
Thousands of protesters listened to the talks on three large screens and projectors set up in the Admiralty district.
Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying told reporters earlier that the government won’t let the public nominate candidates to run in the inaugural direct election to succeed him in 2017. But he said there is room to discuss how to form a key 1,200-member committee that would nominate candidates.
Such changes could be covered in a second round of consultations over the next few months, he said.
“How we should elect the 1,200 so that the nominating committee will be broadly representative, there’s room for discussion there,” Leung said. “There’s room to make the nominating committee more democratic, and this is one of the things we very much want to talk to not just the students but the community at large about.”
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