Monthly Archives: November 2013

Human Rights Watch: China: Keep Commitment to Hong Kong Democracy

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26 November 2013 | Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch urged the Hong Kong and central governments to take immediate action, including by developing a time-bound and detailed plan, to put into practice universal and equal suffrage. They should ensure that any proposals for public consultation for the 2017 chief executive elections conform to international human rights standards, including those set out in the ICCPR. Any committee established for nominating candidates for the elections should conform to such requirements.

“Instead of spending time devising schemes to break promises on electoral reform, the Chinese government should move towards genuine universal suffrage,” said Adams. “The people of Hong Kong have continuously made it clear that they want real democracy. Beijing’s games only undermine its legitimacy in the territory.” 

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Hong Kong Ex-Governor: To Resist Elections Is ‘Spitting in The Wind’

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Natasha Brereton-Fukui | 11 November 2013 | Wall Street Journal

Any erosion of Hong Kong’s economic independence could not only threaten its desirability as an international financial center but hurt China as well, the last governor of the former British colony said in an interview, adding it was inevitable that the authorities would have to give residents greater sway over how the territory is run.

Speaking to The Wall Street Journal during a trip to Singapore, Chris Patten – who governed Hong Kong from 1992 to 1997 – said the core challenge for Hong Kong had always been to combine its openness with the Chinese success story.

“The only thing [Hong Kong] doesn’t have is the right to elect its own government, and sooner or later it will have, because you can’t give people control over all the economic and social decisions in their lives but not allow them to determine who collects their rubbish or how their children should be educated or how their health service should be run,” Lord Patten said. “Anybody who tries to resist that is, I think, spitting in the wind.”

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