Hong Kong set for final faceoff
WHO WILL BLINK FIRST Will there be celebrations for National Day today or deadly showdown?
BEIJING/HONG KONG: Defiant protesters set October 1st as the deadline for the government to respond to their demands for voting reforms even as Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying rejected to meet or discuss the issue with the pro-democracy activists.
The ultimatum coincides with China’s National Day and is seen as a grave affront by Hong Kong’s sovereign rulers in Beijing.
Meanwhile, in Beijing, the Xi Jinping administration continued to call ‘umbrella revolution’ in Hong Kong as illegal and covered reports on the mass agitation in the country’s financial hub in a web of censorship.
State media car ried few reports on protests or the scale of the agitation; English newspapers carried opinion pieces criticising the events that have erupted in the financial hub, designated as a “special administra- tive zone” (SAR) by Beijing.
Visuals from Hong Kong telecast live on CNN and BBC were repeatedly blocked Tuesday morning. The news bulletins resumed soon after these two channels would begin reporting other news.
Words related to the protests were blacked out from the Internet on the Mainland.
Foreign ministry spokesperson, Hua Chunying, said Tuesday Beijing was in full support of the HK government and was confident issue of the “illegal” protests and activities could be resolved.
She warned foreign government from interfering in China’s internal affairs and influencing events in Hong Kong. China’s Communist Party leader Xi Jinping has made no public comment on the protests and remained silent as he and other top party officials offered flower baskets in Tiananmen Square on the first “Martyrs’ Day”, a new holiday to celebrate China’s national heroes. The previous evening Xi “appreciated a music concert”, the party’s official People’s Daily newspaper reported.
I n other developments, British deputy prime minister Nick Clegg said on Tuesday he will summon China’s ambassador to London over the pro- tests in Hong Kong to express his “dismay and alarm” about the refusal to grant free elections.