Street clashes erupt in HK despite imminent talks

HONG KONG — Violent clashes erupted in Hong Kong early yesterday, deepening a sense of impasse between a government with limited options and a pro-democracy movement increasingly willing to confront the police.

The worst political crisis in Hong Kong since Britain handed the free-wheeling capitalist city back to China in 1997 entered its fourth week with no sign of a resolution, despite talks scheduled for two hours tomorrow between the government and student protest leaders.

Beijing has signalled through Hong Kong’s leaders that it is not willing to reverse a decision in August that effectively denies the Asian financial hub the full democracy the protesters are demanding.

“Unless there is some kind of breakthrough in two hours of talks on Tuesday, I’m worried we will see the stand-off worsen and get violent,” said Mr Sonny Lo, a professor at the Hong Kong Institute of Education. “I hope the government has worked out some compromises, because things could get very difficult now.”

Hong Kong’s 28,000-strong police have been struggling to contain a youth-led movement that has shown little sign of waning after three weeks of stand-offs.

Demonstrators in the gritty Mong Kok district launched a fresh assault early yesterday, putting on helmets and goggles before surging forward to grab a line of metal barricades, hemming them into a section of road.

Hundreds of police officers hit out at a wall of umbrellas that protesters raised to fend off pepper spray. Violent scuffles erupted before the police surged forward with riot shields, forcing protesters back. An activist in a white T-shirt and goggles was hit with a flurry of baton blows, leaving him bleeding from a gash in the head. Several protesters were taken away.

A senior policeman at the scene, Paul Renouf, said 400 to 500 officers had been deployed to force the crowds about 20m back from their original position near an intersection. The clashes came hours after Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing leader Leung Chun-ying called for tomorrow’s talks, which will be broadcast live.

The demonstrations pose one of the biggest challenges for China since the crushing of a pro-democracy movement in Beijing in 1989.

Led by a restive generation of students, the protesters have demanded that China’s Communist Party rulers live up to what they have said were promises to grant full democracy to the former British trading outpost. Hong Kong is ruled under a “one country, two systems” formula that allows it wide-ranging freedoms and specifies universal suffrage as an eventual goal.

In August, China endorsed a framework to let only two or three candidates run in the 2017 vote for Hong Kong’s next leader. The protesters want the nominations to be fully open, but Beijing ruled on Aug 31that it would screen candidates who want to run for the city’s Chief Executive in 2017. Protesters are wary that would guarantee a leader loyal to the central government.

Hong Kong’s finance and health chiefs yesterday called on protesters to withdraw while the talks take place. “Withdrawal isn’t an easy decision, (it) warrants a great deal of courage. But I still believe you can have the bravery to make the right choice at the key moments,” Financial Secretary John Tsang wrote in his blog.

Secretary for Food and Health Ko Wing-man urged the demonstrators to refrain from violence. “As the government has already made arrangements to have dialogue with the students in the hope of resolving the situation, I would appeal here again to the protesters that it would be counter-productive to resort to violence again at this particular time,” Mr Ko said.

Protesters resting during the day yesterday were defiant and also angry that the city government was portraying their campaign as increasingly radicalised and violent.

Mr Lap Cheung, 40, said he quit his IT job in the United States to return to Hong Kong to join the protests. “I will continue to stay here until CY (Leung) resigns,” he said, adding that he had no hope for tomorrow’s talks.

Besides Mong Kok, about 1,000 protesters remained camped out on Hong Kong Island in tents on a highway beneath skyscrapers close to government headquarters. AGENCIES