Just as things were looking like they were quieting down it looks like they might be getting worse. The protesters and police are battling over the occupation in Mong Kok. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-29672083 Hong Kong protests: Mong Kok camp retaken from police Activists clashed with police, as about 9,000 protesters re-occupied the area. At least 26 people have been arrested. Demonstrators have been occupying parts of the city for weeks, angered at China's curbs on who can stand in the next leadership election in 2017. The government and students are due to hold talks on Tuesday. Hong Kong Chief Secretary Carrie Lam said both sides would send five representatives to the negotiations. Earlier this week the government called off planned talks saying they were impossible while the occupation of city streets continued. Hong Kong leader CY Leung said on Thursday that he was ready for dialogue, but China would not retract its decision to vet candidates for the 2017 elections. The talks were announced after overnight clashes in which dozens of people were wounded, including at least 15 police officers. Protest group Occupy Central issued a statement (in Chinese) saying that the clearance operations ordered by the government had "triggered a new wave of occupations and worsened relations between police and citizens". Police Commissioner Andy Tsang said the protests were illegal and were "undermining the rule of law". The Mong Kok camp in Kowloon is an offshoot of the original protest site around government offices in Admiralty on Hong Kong Island. Protesters and police have also been facing off the Admiralty district, although there are no reports of clashes. Protester numbers have dropped off since the start of the month, when tens of thousands were on the streets. But tensions escalated this week, with violent clashes as police cleared an underpass on Lung Wo Road near the chief executive's offices. A video showing plainclothes police officers beating an unarmed protester, who is a member of the pro-democracy Civic Party, also sparked outrage. Police said seven officers had been suspended pending an investigation.
This is one of the biggest issues that hasn't been talked much about is how does the Hong Kong situation affect potential reunification with Taiwan. After years of warming relations between the PRC government and the KMT in Taiwan what happens in Hong Kong is slowing down relationships and causing a lot of unease in Taiwan. http://www.newsweek.com/2014/10/31/...-kong-sends-chills-through-taiwan-278455.html Beijing’s Crushing of Democracy in Hong Kong Sends Chills Through Taiwan The umbrellas are taking their toll on Beijing. The Central Committee may have managed, so far, to avoid major bloodshed in its standoff with Hong Kong demonstrators, but the clash between democracy defenders and guardians of Communist doctrine is reverberating in many of China’s provinces and is dimming its hope of peacefully annexing the independent island of Taiwan and uniting it with the mainland. The pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong are sending a grim signal to businesspeople in the region. After years of improved commercial ties between Taiwan and its giant neighbor, many Taiwanese sense that the thaw is moving too fast for comfort. The clashes in Hong Kong between the Beijing-backed authorities and demonstrators bode ill for Taiwan’s advocates of further integration with the mainland. Taiwan’s President Ma Ying-jeou has done more than any of his predecessors to ease tensions, signing dozens of treaties with Beijing that seemed unthinkable until very recently. Yet, even before events in Hong Kong started to dominate our television screens in late September, young Taiwanese protested against his cozying up to China, forcing him to rethink a major trade agreement with the Communist monolith the island separated from in 1949. Now, as Ma’s Kuomintang party faces a challenge, in a round of local elections on November 29, against candidates of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party, the president has sharply rebuked Beijing’s leadership, expressing solidarity with the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong. “This is a major test case for the new leadership in China,” said a senior diplomat from the region, who has managed his country’s relations with Beijing. Speaking on condition of anonymity, as criticism of China is a delicate matter in the region, the diplomat said that Xi Jinping, not yet two years in office as China’s leader, seems “unpredictable.” The way he brings the Hong Kong crisis to a conclusion—peaceful or otherwise—will not only put to the test Xi’s ability to handle internal affairs but also China’s relations with its neighbors. As the Hong Kong crisis grew, Xi displayed his political tin ear by inviting pro-China businessmen from Taiwan to visit the mainland. “One country, two systems” was the best way to realize reunification between the mainland and the independent island, he said. But Hong Kong’s business district was being besieged by protesters—hardly the right time to resell that dubious idea, which China seems to have unilaterally reneged on in Hong Kong. The “one country, two systems” notion promised complete self-rule in Hong Kong as Britain wound down its control over its former colony in 1997. But the recent clashes in the streets seemed to have ended any hope that Beijing would let the city’s long-established democracy continue to thrive. China insists on handpicking a slate of candidates for an election expected in 2017, while the demonstrators demand that anyone should be allowed to stand for election. Reacting to Xi’s meeting with Taiwanese supporters, Ma addressed the nation on Taiwan’s National Day. Reversing his usually careful conciliatory tone, he called on Beijing to make the whole of China a constitutional democracy rather than quash democracy in Hong Kong. “China would simply be making good on a pledge made 17 years ago, when they said that for 50 years they would allow rule of Hong Kong by the people of Hong Kong, a high degree of autonomy and election of the chief executive through universal suffrage,” he said. “Now that the 1.3 billion people [in mainland China] have become moderately wealthy,” Ma added, “they will of course wish to enjoy greater democracy and rule of law. Such a desire has never been a monopoly of the West, but is the right of all humankind.” It was a bold declaration of principle from a man who has found a way of co-existing with his country’s giant neighbor. “Ma has managed to negotiate over 20 agreements with China, and he did so as an equal,” said New York University professor Jerome Cohen, a veteran China watcher. Under Ma, regular air flights between the island and the mainland increased tourism, Taiwan’s high-tech manufacturers moved major factories to China, and cultural exchanges grew. Trade across the Taiwan Strait totaled $197 billion last year, almost five times the 2002 figure. But now, “at the time when Ma would love to have an opportunity to meet with Xi, we see him denounce Xi instead,” said Cohen. Even before the Hong Kong demonstrations began in September, as Ma was about to sign a major new pact, the Cross-Strait Services Trade Agreement, many Taiwanese students and civil leaders started fearing that fast economic integration with the mainland would expose Taiwan to too much political pressure from the mainland. In March, peaceful protests were launched under the banner of the “Sunflower Movement,” forcing Ma to delay signing the trade agreement. The pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, meanwhile, watched the Taiwanese demonstrations carefully, said Vincent Wang, a professor of political science at the University of Richmond. The two movements became close, he noted, and their leaders in Taiwan and Hong Kong communicated with each other, exchanging tactical tips and information. “The Sunflower Movement in Taiwan impressed [a lot of people in the region] by conducting demonstrations peacefully,” Wang said, speaking during a recent visit to Taiwan. The conduct of Taiwan’s protesters was one of the reasons the “demonstrations in Hong Kong were remarkably polite and peaceful,” he said. Nevertheless, Beijing and its allies in Hong Kong have refused to relent. When I asked a Chinese diplomat recently whether the refusal to allow any Hong Kong resident to stand for election violates the agreement with Britain to maintain Hong Kong’s political independence, he immediately corrected me. “It wasn’t one country, two systems, but extended autonomy,” he said. The one country, two systems concept was initially developed by China’s then-premier, Deng Xiaoping, in the 1980s as a plan to peacefully integrate Taiwan into the mainland. It was only later adapted for Hong Kong, and to this day it remains Beijing’s official plan for Taiwan, which Beijing still considers to be part of China. But as Beijing is now making it clear it will not allow Hong Kong to maintain its democratic system after all, any illusion that Taiwan would one day agree to a similar arrangement has quickly evaporated, along with many of Ma’s other approaches to China. “I don’t think anyone expected anyone in Taiwan to be wooed into peaceful reunification,” said Susan Shirk, chair of the 21st Century China Program at the University of San Diego. Though both Hong Kong and Taiwan are Chinese, over the years they have each developed an identity separate from that of the mainland, a fact that is apparently lost on Beijing. “I don’t know if they really understand the identity issue,” Shirk said. Meanwhile, Beijing has never dropped its threat to forcefully annex Taiwan, and even as commercial ties increased, China has increased the number of missiles targeting Taiwan. As the elections in Taiwan come closer, we must expect new requests from Taiwan for American defensive arms, said Wang. For example, he said, Taiwan may ask for the U.S. blueprints of diesel submarines to build new subs and replenish the aging fleets in Taiwanese shipyards. America’s long-term policy has been to defend Taiwan against any Chinese attempt to annex it forcefully and to maintain the island’s defensive capabilities. But since 2001, when the U.S. sold Taiwan eight submarines, no major new American weapons system has been sold to the island. When Taipei tried to buy a new generation of F-16 fighter jets recently, the Obama administration opted to refurbish its older F-16s instead. “We know that the folks in Taiwan and the mainland watch to see whether there’s the slightest change, and we’re very careful not to change” that arms policy, said Shirk, who was a State Department official in the Clinton era with responsibility for China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Mongolia. Regardless of the delicate diplomatic dance of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, could the souring of relations between Taiwan and China, combined with Beijing’s more assertive policies across the region, deteriorate into a military confrontation? Or even war? “Expect some rise in tensions, but I don’t think it will result in hostilities,” says New York University’s Cohen, adding, “Then again, I’ve been often wrong before.”
There's so much bias in alot of Hong Kong's media, it's hard to find the truth behind the articles. The pro-government and anti-government media outlets are all cranking their spin machines to full power. Apple Daily, the 2nd most popular newspaper in Hong Kong, is especially bad. Just look at this incident Apple Daily reported as "Police Violently Beating Reporter". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_5nXlpEKCg#t=92
The Occupy Central movement has lasted far longer than many thought but this really appears to be the end. It's going to be difficult for the pro-democracy forces to figure out what the next steps are going to be. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/03/us-hongkong-china-idUSKCN0JH07K20141203 Hong Kong 'Occupy' leaders surrender as pro-democracy protests appear to wither (Reuters) - Leaders of Hong Kong's Occupy Central movement surrendered to police on Wednesday for their role in democracy protests that the government has deemed illegal, the latest sign that the civil disobedience campaign may be running out of steam. Three founders turned themselves in a day after calling on students to retreat from protest sites in the Asia financial center amid fears of further violence, just hours after student leader Joshua Wong had called on supporters to regroup. Pro-Beijing groups taunted Benny Tai, Chan Kin-man and Reverend Chu Yiu-ming as they entered a police station just two subway stops from the main protest site in Admiralty, next to the Chinese-controlled city's financial center. The three, accompanied by Cardinal Joseph Zen, 82, former Catholic Bishop of Hong Kong, filled in forms, giving personal information, and were allowed to leave without facing any charges. "I hope we can show others the meaning of the surrender. We urge the occupation to end soon and more citizens will carry out the basic responsibility of civil disobedience, which is to surrender," said Benny Tai, the most prominent of the Occupy leaders, after he left the police station. Police said 24 people aged between 33 and 82 had surrendered for "taking part in an unauthorized assembly", and authorities would conduct follow-up investigations based on the information provided. More than 100,000 people took to the streets at the height of the demonstrations but numbers have dwindled to a few hundred, mostly students, and public support has waned as the protests blocked key roads and disrupted business. Some students defied calls for them to retreat and vowed to stay put at protest sites to press their call for free elections for the city's next leader in 2017. But Jean Pierre Cabestan, an expert in Chinese politics at Hong Kong Baptist University, said the Occupy movement was "in tatters". "The trouble and one of the weaknesses of the movement is there's not much coordination between the Hong Kong Federation of Students and the pan-democrats," he told foreign correspondents in Beijing. The protesters are united in their calls for democracy for the former British colony but are split over tactics, two months after the demonstrations, also branded illegal by Beijing, began. "Illegal demands cannot be granted, especially those expressed by illegal and extreme methods," the overseas edition of the Chinese Communist Party's official People's Daily said. The Occupy call for students to pull back came a day after clashes between police and protesters in Admiralty after activists tried to ring government headquarters. Police charged into the protesters, raining down truncheon blows and squirting jets of incapacitating "pava" spray. Scores of activists and police were wounded. Pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai said the students should withdraw. "If (the protest) keeps dragging on, it will wear down their willpower, which is exactly what Beijing wants," he told reporters. Authorities cleared protesters from the working-class district of Mong Kok across the harbor last week, triggering running battles as students tried to regroup. A small group remains camped out in the busy shopping district of Causeway Bay, but the bulk are in nearby Admiralty where students have erected a makeshift village. Hong Kong returned to Chinese Communist Party rule in 1997 under a "one country, two systems" formula that gave it some autonomy from the mainland and a promise of eventual universal suffrage. Beijing has insisted on screening any candidates for city leader first. The Occupy Central movement had planned to lock down the heart of the financial center around the first week of October but violent clashes between riot police and students at the end of September got the action off to an early start.
NO kidding, according to the last poll conducted by the University of Hong Kong 83% of the people want the protest to end.
