U.s. Backs Hong Kong Activists’ Push For ‘universal Suffrage’

Hong Kong pro-democracy activists admitted Tuesday they are powerless to overturn Beijing’s refusal to grant them full voting rights, but the United States threw its weight behind the protesters, courting China’s wrath. Activist leaders had promised a new “era of civil disobedience” after Beijing crushed hopes for full democracy on Sunday, ruling that only pre-vetted candidates will be able to run for leadership of the semi-autonomous city in 2017. But organisers from the pro-democracy group Occupy Central, who have vowed to take over the city streets, acceded defeat on Tuesday — even though they said the protest would still go ahead. “We have to admit the fact that up to this point it is quite unrealistic to think that our action will change the decision made by Beijing,” Occupy Central co-founder Chan Kin-Man told AFP. In a move set to enrage China’s communist authorities, Washington, meanwhile, gave its backing to universal suffrage in the former British colony. “The United States supports universal suffrage in Hong Kong in accordance with the Basic Law (Hong Kong’s mini-constitution) and the aspirations of the Hong Kong people,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters. “We believe that an open society with the highest possible degree of autonomy and governed by rule of law is essential for Hong Kong’s stability and prosperity.” The comments are likely to infuriate Beijing, which on Tuesday accused Britain of interfering in its domestic affairs over a British parliamentary inquiry into Hong Kong’s political reforms. “Hong Kong has returned to the motherland,” China’s foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said. “Issues concerning the political reform of Hong Kong falls totally within China’s domestic affairs, which allows no interference from the outside.” But Chris Patten, Hong Kong’s last British governor before the city was handed back to China in 1997, urged Britain to speak out.