Mr. Shangkong | It's never too late to start talking
Longer term, Hong Kong's success will depend on it being a democratic city with more freedom
I'm struggling to imagine what could happen next in Hong Kong and what the worst case scenario could be over the next few days.
The more I think about it, the more I'm confused.
Too many events have happened very rapidly in the past few days. Many simply went beyond common sense.
Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, languishing at record low support ratings in various public polls, can still pretend he's all right, with Beijing even praising him for his satisfactory work so far in a hardline editorial in the Communist Party mouthpiece the People's Daily.
When our courts ruled there was no legitimate reason for the police to detain pro-democracy student leader Joshua Wong indefinitely and eventually forced the police to release him, no one from the police had one word of apology to Wong for detaining him unlawfully for longer than necessary. A day after Occupy Central protesters, sitting peacefully in the streets, were attacked by triads in Mong Kok, a local Chinese-language newspaper praised the "angry residents" who had at last decided to fight to clear the roads "with their blood" in their own way. How shameless!
Many feel such negotiations, with such weak mutual trust, would likely go nowhere
On the one hand, the government said the priority for all parties involved in the worst political crisis in Hong Kong since the handover should be to sit down peacefully for negotiations rather than blame one another. On the other, Financial Secretary John Tsang blamed the Occupy Central movement for damaging the economy.