China: Hong Kong’s Democratic Awakening | Wall Street Journal

Hong Kong police used tear gas Sunday evening to disperse peaceful protesters sitting downtown near government offices. The crowd of perhaps 50,000 quickly regrouped, even more determined to demand that Beijing withdraw a plan for sham democracy in 2017. More than 70 protesters have been arrested so far; police held banners threatening “military force” if the protests continue. The confrontation marks a turning point in the city’s quest for democracy. For years the people of Hong Kong avoided direct conflict with Beijing in the hope that Chinese authorities might be persuaded to grant them self-government. Now they realize that their only chance for democracy is to demand it.

China: Can 17-Year-Old Democracy Protester Joshua Wong Defeat Beijing? | NBC

In his black T-shirt, shorts and flip flops, Joshua Wong could be just another Hong Kong high school student. But the 17-year-old has fast become the bête noire of China’s state media — they have called him an extremist and a buffoon in response to his leadership of student protests demanding greater democracy in the former British colony now ruled by China. “Students and youth have more passion and more power to be involved in this movement,” he told NBC News outside Hong’s Kong’s government buildings where he was protesting this week. “Young people expect more change and they dream to have a better political structure for the future.” Hong Kong is now halfway through a week of student strikes — class boycotts — culminating in a planned walk-out Friday by high school students.

China: Hong Kong voting rights on agenda at UN rights body | The China Post

The United Nations’ human rights body said Wednesday it would take up the issue of voting rights in Hong Kong, where activists are railing against Beijing’s move to vet local candidates. The Human Rights Committee, which monitors respect of an international treaty on civil and political rights, will hold a public session on the thorny issue on Oct. 23, spokeswoman Elizabeth Throssel told AFP. The news follows an announcement by China late last month that Hong Kong’s next leader will be vetted by a pro-Beijing committee, dashing hopes for genuine democracy in the former British colony.

China: Ruling On Hong Kong Election Brings The City Closer To A Mass Occupation | Associated Press

China’s legislature on Sunday ruled out allowing open nominations in the inaugural election for Hong Kong’s leader, saying they would create a “chaotic society.” Democracy activists in the Asian financial hub responded by saying that a long-threatened mass occupation of the heart of the city “will definitely happen.” In setting tight limits on how far electoral reforms can go in Hong Kong, Beijing issued its firmest reminder yet that it’s still in charge despite the substantial autonomy it promised the city after taking control from Britain in 1997. The guidelines laid down by China’s communist leaders ratchet up the potential for a showdown pitting Beijing against Hong Kong democracy supporters, a group that represents a broad swath of society, including students, religious leaders and financial workers. The decision by the legislature’s powerful Standing Committee sharpens fears that China wants to screen candidates for loyalty to the central government and is reneging on its promise to let Hong Kong’s leader be directly elected by voters, rather than the current committee of mostly pro-Beijing tycoons.

China: Democracy in China: The struggle for Hong Kong | The Economist

Chinese officials have called it a “leap forward” for democracy in Hong Kong. Yet their announcement on August 31st of plans to allow, for the first time, every Hong Kong citizen to vote for the territory’s leader has met only anger and indifference. Joy was conspicuously absent. This is not because Hong Kong’s citizens care little for the right to vote, but because China has made it abundantly clear that the next election for Hong Kong’s chief executive, due in 2017, will be rigged. The only candidates allowed to stand will be those approved by the Communist Party in Beijing, half a continent away. At its worst, this risks provoking a disaster which even China cannot want. Democrats are planning protests. It is unclear how many people will join in, but the fear is that the territory’s long history of peaceful campaigning for political reform will give way to skirmishes with police, mass arrests and possibly even intervention by the People’s Liberation Army. That would disrupt one of Asia’s wealthiest and most orderly economies, and set China against the West. But even if, as is likely, such a calamity is avoided, this leap sideways is a huge missed opportunity not just for Hong Kong but also for the mainland. A chance to experiment with the sort of local democracy that might have benefited all of China has been missed.

China: Democracy Backers in Hong Kong Face Tough Choices | New York Times

For more than a year, Democrats in Hong Kong have threatened to disrupt Asia’s most important financial center with a sit-in protest if the central government in Beijing put onerous restrictions on a voting plan here. China’s Communist Party-controlled legislature did just that on Sunday, so now the democracy movement must decide how to carry out its threat, even while the defeat of its immediate demand seemed certain. Students and organizers will hold meetings in coming days to map out a plan of protracted protests, including student strikes, legislative obstruction and a sit-in in the city’s Central financial district, the tactic that gave name to the main grass-roots opposition group, Occupy Central. They said they expected to be arrested for blocking major thoroughfares in the heart of Hong Kong.

China: Disruptive Hong Kong protests loom after China rules out democracy | Reuters

Hong Kong police used pepper spray to disperse pro-democracy activists on Monday as the Asian financial centre braces for a wave of disruptive protests against China’s decision to rule out full democracy. China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee set the stage for a political showdown on Sunday when it rejected democrats’ demands for the right to freely choose Hong Kong’s next leader in 2017, leading scores of protesters to take to the streets. Scuffles broke out on Monday during a tense stand-off at the entrance to a centre where a senior Chinese official was explaining Beijing’s decision, prompting police to use pepper spray amid chaotic scenes inside and outside the venue.

China: Parliament refuses to give Hong Kong right to choose leaders; protesters vow vengeance | The Washington Post

China’s parliament decided Sunday against letting Hong Kong voters nominate candidates for the 2017 election, despite growing agitation for democratic reform. The move is likely to spark long-promised protests in Hong Kong’s business district, as activists began planning and mobilizing within hours of the announcement. The decision by China’s National People’s Congress essentially allows Communist leaders to weed out any candidates not loyal to Beijing. “It’s not unexpected, but it is still infuriating,” said legislator Emily Lau, chairwoman of the Democratic Party. “This is not what Beijing promised. They’ve lied to the people of Hong Kong. And it’s clear we are dealing with an authoritarian regime.” Defending China’s ruling, Li Fei, deputy secretary general of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, said allowing public nominations in the election for Hong Kong’s leader would be too “chaotic.”

China: Protests in Macau: Chipping in | The Economist

Known for its casinos and conservative society, the city-state of Macau is a magnet for the rich in search of decadent fun. It is rarely the site of political protest. But on August 25th around 1,000 of Macau’s dealers and servers took to the streets to demand pay hikes and better working conditions. They are among those who support an unofficial referendum on Macau’s political future, which began on August 24th at polling stations and online. Jason Chao, a 29-year-old software developer and the president of the Open Macau Society, a local pro-democracy group which helped sponsor the poll, hoped it would “help people draw connections between things like inflation and high cost of housing and the political system.” The poll asked residents if they support universal suffrage by 2019; and whether they have confidence in Macau’s current chief executive, Fernando Chui, who is running unopposed for re-election later this week, on August 31st—the same day the poll results are due to be released.

China: No ‘international norms’ for electoral system mentioned in Basic Law, says CY Leung | South China Morning Post

The Basic Law does not stipulate that the city’s electoral system must meet international norms, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying said yesterday, in remarks some scholars saw as a tactic to justify a possible crackdown on Occupy Central. Speaking as the National People’s Congress Standing Committee met in Beijing to discuss a framework for reform ahead of the city’s first democratic chief executive election in 2017, Leung said: “The Basic Law simply does not state the term ‘international standards’.” He made the remarks in reference to the demands of the Occupy movement, which has threatened to rally volunteers to block streets in the heart of the city if Beijing fails to allow a model for universal suffrage that conforms with accepted international standards.

China: Macau Referendum Organizers Arrested | VoA News

Organizers of a referendum on Macau’s electoral process were arrested over the weekend in a move some say shows China’s nervousness over universal suffrage in the special administrative regions of Macau and Hong Kong. The five arrested included the organizers of the referendum and representatives from local pro-democratic groups Macau Conscience, Macao Youth Dynamics and Open Macau Society. The referendum was to be a week-long informal poll on the electoral system of the city’s Chief Executive post. “Although it is described as a referendum it may well lead to activities that the Chinese government may consider subversive and may even lead to secession, so I think this explains the arrests,” said Simon Young, Associate Dean at the University of Hong Kong’s Faculty of Law.

China: Hundreds vote in Macau unofficial referendum on electoral reform despite objection from Beijing | ABC

Activists in the Chinese casino centre Macau have began voting in an unofficial referendum on electoral reform despite strong objections from Beijing. The referendum will run for a week to end on August 30, one day before the Special Administrative Region’s new leader is named by a 400-member committee. The former Portuguese colony returned to Chinese rule in 1999 and has a separate legal system from the mainland. Like Hong Kong, Macau’s leader is known as its chief executive and is chosen by a pro-Beijing electoral committee. “Our goal is to fight for a democratic electoral system and the first stage is to get the citizens informed of the election system,” poll organiser Jason Chao said in the leadup to the event. “We hope that the referendum will be able to serve as a foundation for our fight for democracy in the future.”

China: Macau unofficial democracy poll halted as police detain five activists | South China Morning Post

Two leaders of an unofficial “referendum” on Macau’s chief executive election and three other activists were detained yesterday as police shut down polling stations. Officers raided all five referendum polling stations within hours of the launch of the seven-day ballot, which asked locals if they had confidence in Chief Executive Dr Fernando Chui Sai-on and wanted universal suffrage at the next election. The detained included Scott Chiang Meng-hin, a key member of the New Macau Association, the most prominent democratic group in the former Portuguese enclave. Also detained was Jason Chao Teng-hei – leader of Open Macau Society, co-organisers of the poll with Macau Conscience and Macau Youth Dynamics.

China: Why Hong Kong’s Voting Rights Could Be in Danger | CityLab

Former public officials in Hong Kong have been lobbying the United Kingdom and the international community overall to stand up for the semi-autonomous Chinese territory, where students and activists are pressing Beijing for the right to elect their chief executive in 2017. But there’s little that the U.K. is likely or willing to do. Thirty years ago, the British agreed to hand over Hong Kong, one of its last colonies, to Beijing under an international treaty known as the Joint Declaration. It “guaranteed Hong Kong’s way of life for 50 years” under the idea of “one country, two systems,” meaning that Hong Kongers would live under the rule of law, with freedom of speech, assembly, and worship, elections and a “high degree of autonomy.” Now, many feel that those freedoms are quickly being erased. Over the next month, Beijing is expected to release guidelines for elections that will allow it to influence Hong Kong’s slate of candidates, effectively limiting the right to full suffrage.

China: Hong Kong’s big political question: What will the rules be for the 2017 election? | Los Angeles Times

The giant alien robot smackdown in “Transformers: Age of Extinction” isn’t the only fight raging in Hong Kong this summer. The southern Chinese territory has been consumed by a real-life political battle royale. Massive crowds have taken to the streets to demonstrate. Cops arrested more than 500 people at a sit-in and pepper sprayed others trying to smash through the doors of the legislature. Inside the chamber, one lawmaker even hurled a glass toward Hong Kong’s chief executive, the city’s (widely disliked) top leader. High schoolers interrupt their graduation ceremonies with tuneful protests of “Do You Hear the People Sing?” from “Les Miserables.” Bosses of big banks and accounting firms face off against their own employees, taking out dueling political ads in newspapers.

China: Macau Activists Plan Hong Kong-Style Poll on Greater Democracy | New York Times

Activists in the Chinese territory of Macau say they plan to hold an informal referendum on direct elections after a similar effort in Hong Kong attracted a large turnout and helped publicize residents’ aspirations for democratic change. Like Hong Kong, Macau’s top official is chosen by a largely pro-establishment body of electors who are unlikely to challenge China’s central government. The chief executive of Macau, Fernando Chui, is expected to be granted a second five-year term by the 400-member election commission when he faces re-election on Aug. 31.

China: After Hong Kong, Macau announces democracy vote | AFP

Activists in the gambling hub of Macau have announced an unofficial referendum on electoral reform in the latest challenge to Beijing, after almost 800,000 turned out for a similar poll in Hong Kong. The former Portuguese colony returned to Chinese rule in 1999 and has a separate legal system from the mainland. As with Hong Kong, Macau’s leader is known as its chief executive and is chosen by a pro-Beijing electoral committee. Three civil groups have joined forces to organise the poll, which will run between August 24 and August 30 — just ahead of the naming of the enclave’s new leader on August 31.

China: Hong Kong, Beijing Consider New Reality After Pro-Democracy Referendum | VoA News

Hong Kong and Chinese officials and lawmakers are considering how to deal with a new political reality in which almost 800,000 Hong Kong residents made an unprecedented show of support for greater democracy by participating in an unofficial referendum. Occupy Central With Love and Peace, a movement of Hong Kong pro-democracy activists who organized the 10-day referendum that ended Sunday, said 792,000 citizens cast valid ballots. The vast majority of them used Internet and mobile phone, though several thousand cast paper ballots at polling stations. Hong Kong had approximately 3.5 million regisered voters in 2012, according to The Guardian.

China: Tens of thousands turn out for Hong Kong democracy march | Reuters

Clutching banners and chanting slogans, tens of thousands of protesters have staged a pro-democracy rally in Hong Kong that organisers say could be the largest since the city was handed back to China. The rally on Tuesday reflects surging discontent over Beijing’s insistence that it vet candidates before a vote in 2017 for the semi-autonomous region’s next leader. The march comes after nearly 800,000 people voted in an informal referendum to demand a electoral mechanism to nominate candidates. The poll has irked Beijing, which branded it ‘‘illegal and invalid’’ despite the unexpectedly high turnout.

China: Hong Kong wraps up unofficial democracy poll in defiance of Beijing | Asharq al-Awsat

More than 780,000 votes were cast by Sunday, the final day of an unofficial referendum on democratic reforms in Hong Kong, part of a civil campaign that has been branded illegal by local and mainland Chinese authorities. Hong Kong, a freewheeling, capitalist hub of more than 7 million people, returned to Chinese rule in 1997 with wide-ranging autonomy under a “one country, two systems” formula, along with an undated promise of universal suffrage. While Beijing says Hong Kong can go ahead with a vote in 2017 for the city’s top leader, Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law, specifies that only a nominating committee can pick leadership candidates. Democracy activists want the nomination process to be open to everyone, in line with international standards, and have threatened to lock down the Central area of Hong Kong, home to some of Asia’s biggest companies and banks, if the city fails to adopt a strong democratic method for electing its next leader.

China: Hong Kong Ends Voting in Referendum, Readies for Rally | VoA News

More than 780,000 votes were cast by Sunday, the final day of an unofficial referendum on how Hong Kong’s next leader should be chosen. The ballot has been branded illegal by local and mainland Chinese authorities. Hong Kong, a free-wheeling, capitalist hub of more than 7 million people, returned to Chinese rule on July 1, 1997, with wide-ranging autonomy under a “one country, two systems”  formula, along with an undated promise of universal suffrage. China has promised to let all Hong Kong residents vote for their next leader in 2017. But it said candidates must be approved by a nomination committee.

China: Hong Kong Democracy Poll Puts Beijing in a Corner | US News & World Report

A 10-day unofficial pro-democracy referendum opened in Hong Kong on June 20, attracting higher-than-expected turnout and angering China’s central government in Beijing. Organized by pro-democracy group Occupy Central, the referendum offers voters a choice of three reform plans for the election of Hong Kong’s chief executive, all of which include public nomination of candidates, an idea rejected by Beijing. Despite massive cyberattacks blamed on mainland China, more than 700,000 online and in-person voters cast ballots in the first three days of voting. Beijing, as expected, was deeply displeased. Chinese state-run media attacked the referendum as an “illegal farce” that is “tinged with mincing ludicrousness.” Chinese media, officials in Beijing, and pro-Beijing officials in Hong Kong have been unrelenting in their efforts to discredit the referendum process, calling it “invalid” and raising suspicions of an “inflated turnout due to the flawed online voting system.” Chen Zuo’er, former deputy director of China’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office said that the referendum was not a valid indicator of how Hong Kong residents wanted to elect their chief executive. “The media have reported that there are dishonest elements during the process of conducting the public vote, which will result in its failure to truly reflect public opinion,” said Chen, without elaborating on these claims.

China: San Francisco firm defends Hong Kong vote from online attack | Los Angeles Times

Two weeks ago, Matthew Prince, the chief executive of San Francisco tech company CloudFlare, had no clue that people in Hong Kong were preparing to hold a controversial online referendum on democratic reforms. By Thursday night, half a world away from the southern Chinese city, he found himself on the front lines of a battle to defend the nonbinding, unofficial vote from sabotage. Amazon Web Services and Hong Kong’s UDomain had initially been onboard to support and protect the voting website. But at the last minute, both bowed out, saying the expected size of the cyberassault could affect their other customers. That was a somewhat worrying sign for Prince and team, whose small, 5-year-old company specializes in making websites run more quickly and smoothly and preventing disruptions and recently launched a pro bono service for situations just like this.

China: Herculean hacking attack takes aim at Hong Kong’s dreams of democracy | The Globe and Mail

The full fury of the Internet attack started three hours before polls opened. As people in Hong Kong prepared to cast electronic ballots in an effort to show Chinese authorities their hunger for democracy, hackers opened fire with a potent effort to derail the vote. Suddenly, a flood of data swarmed the servers designed to handle the voting in a poll held by Occupy Central with Love and Peace, a burgeoning protest movement that has sought the right for Hong Kong people to nominate and elect their own chief executive, the territory’s most powerful position. But the informal vote on universal suffrage was attacked by at least 300 gigabits of data per second – and perhaps as high as 600, a level not before reached in a publicly disclosed hacking attack. The torrent reached 200 million packets, or tiny bits of data, per second. It was “just a stunning amount of traffic,” said Matthew Prince, chief executive officer of CloudFlare, the San Francisco-based Internet security company that managed to keep the website online.

China: Hong Kong unofficial referendum extended after online voting problem | Deutsche Welle

Voters in Hong Kong will have a further week to cast their votes either online or at the polling booth in a referendum on democratic reform that was due to finish on Sunday. Although the unofficial referendum has no legal force, it is offering a choice of three options on how the 2017 chief executive ballot should be carried out. Each option would allow voters to choose candidates for the top job. China’s State Council called the vote “illegal and invalid.” The current system allows a 1,200 member committee to choose the former British colony’s leader.

China: Poll on Democracy Draws Big Turnout in Hong Kong | New York Times

Participation in an informal poll to gauge Hong Kong’s desire for democracy is exceeding expectations, helped on Sunday by hundreds of volunteers who are reaching potential voters in subway stations and shopping malls, bringing American-style retail politics to one small corner of the People’s Republic of China. Three days into a 10-day voting period, more than 689,000 ballots had been cast, equal to almost one-fifth of the number of registered voters in Hong Kong, a former British colony that was returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. Organizers had publicly said they hoped for at least 100,000 participants in the poll, which has been condemned as “illegal and invalid” by the central government in Beijing. Most votes have been cast online — on computers through a website or by smartphones with an app — but on Sunday, polling centers opened across Hong Kong, and people voted in curtained booths. The poll is nonbinding and does not have the backing of the Hong Kong government.

China: ‘Referendum’ organisers to extend poll after cyberattacks on electronic voting system | South China Morning Post

Organisers of Occupy Central say they will extend voting on Friday’s “referendum” on electoral reform from three days to 10 days after its electronic system was targeted by hackers. The system, set up to accept advance registrations, has been hit by more than 10 billion cyberattacks since it was launched last week. The civil disobedience movement was not the only victim of the attacks. Chinese-language newspaper Apple Daily  – known for its pro-democracy stance – was also brought down by hackers. And the attacks were of the same type – distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) – in which the server of a website is besieged by demands to access the site. Access to the online editions of Apple Daily in Hong Kong and Taiwan  was limited yesterday and it instead relied on content uploaded to social media before  normal service resumed after a 12-hour disruption.

China: Beijing Implicated As Hong Kong Vote Sites Crash Under Massive DDoS | Infosecurity

Even Amazon Web Services servers couldn’t cope with traffic overload. A major anti-Beijing news site and an online voting platform have been hit by major DDoS attacks rendering them unusable, just days before an unofficial referendum in Hong Kong on universal suffrage. The websites of the popular Apple Daily newspaper in Hong Kong and Taiwan were both inaccessible for much of Wednesday, while the Public Opinion Programme at the University of Hong Kong was still down at the time of writing. The university was appointed, along with Center for Social Policy Studies at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, to carry out an online referendum on voting rights in the Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China. Occupy Central, a movement striving for universal suffrage, organized the vote from June 20-22.

China: Cyber Security Breach Threatens Hong Kong’s Democratic Reform ‘Referendum’ | International Business Times

One of the people in charge of a Hong Kong voting website has claimed that distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS) have crashed the site a few days before it is running a poll on whether citizens want democratic reform in the former British colony. The unofficial referendum is meant to be a litmus test over how Hong Kong citizens view the pace of political reforms in the country after Communist Party leaders in Beijing promised change when it reverted back to Chinese rule in 1997. However, according to the site’s organiser Benny Tai, the system was flooded with “billions of visits” meaning that the poll on political dissatisfaction cannot be reached by voters at this time.

China: Electoral reform referendum voting hours to be extended after cyberattacks | South China Morning Post

Occupy Central organisers will extend the voting hours of their three-day citywide ballot on electoral reform to buffer the exercise against a deluge of cyberattacks. The electronic system that had been set up to accept advance registrations came under more than 10 billion cyberattacks in a total of 20 hours over the past few days, the organisers said. One internet security expert said “the scale of attack was unprecedented in the history of Hong Kong” and believed at least 5,000 computers were involved. The June 20-22 “referendum” can also accept votes at 15 polling stations set up across the city – but these would be opened only on Sunday and could accommodate a total of about 70,000 votes at most, Occupy organiser Dr Chan Kin-man said yesterday.