Hong Kong protests

Protesters in Hong Kong finally accepted an offer of talks with the government after a week of unrest.

Chief Executive CY Leung Leung offered the talks with his deputy late on Thursday but rejected calls to resign.The protesters, angry at China’s plan to vet election candidates, have been occupying parts of the city since the weekend, though numbers have fallen.Beijing has thrown its full support behind Mr Leung, calling the protests illegal and “doomed to fail”.BBC report.

Hong Kong’s political leaders say they are ready to hold talks with pro-democracy protesters. But hundreds of students are continuing their sit-ins near government buildings, making it uncertain whether the standoff will be resolved any time soon.

Embattled Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying refused to resign on Thursday night, but expressed a willingness to send second-ranked Chief Secretary Carrie Lam and 2 other senior officials to speak with the student leaders.

The number of protesters massed in the central district sharply declined on Friday morning. But a few hundred students still remained in front of Leung’s office.

They shouted calls for Leung to resign as police officers stood guard.

The illegal gatherings of the Occupy Central movement are aimed at challenging both China’s supreme power organ and Hong Kong citizens’ democratic rights, and are doomed to fail, according to a commentary to be carried by Friday’s People’s Daily.

For several days, some people have been staging protests in Hong Kong in the name of seeking the so-called “real universal suffrage.”

They attempt to force the central authorities to change the decision made by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s top legislature, on Hong Kong’s electoral system. Such actions blatantly violate the Basic Law of Hong Kong and the principle of rule of law, according to the opinion piece.

“There is no room to make concessions on issues of important principles,” says the commentary on the flagship newspaper of the Communist Party of China.

The decision made on Aug. 31 granted universal suffrage in the selection of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR)’s chief executive on the basis of nomination by a “broadly representative” committee.

The decision possesses unchallengeable legal status and authority. It is “a certain choice and the only choice” to safeguard the decision, according to the commentary.

The NPC decision is in line with the “one country, two systems” policy and the Basic Law. It has fully heeded opinions from all walks of life in Hong Kong, it says.

The core purpose of instigators of illegal activities is to ensure that their representatives, including those in defiance of the central authorities, can become candidates of HKSAR’s chief executives, the commentary says. “Such a demand is neither illegal nor reasonable.”

As one of China’s local administrative regions, Hong Kong is directly under the jurisdiction of the central government rather than a state or an independent political entity, the commentary says.

Once the public opinions were hijacked by a minor group, it would not be conducive to the implementation of “one country, two systems” policy, Hong Kong’s long-term prosperity and stability as well as realization of universal suffrage, the commentary warns.  report Xenhua