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Former US president Jimmy Carter said the government should at least "honour the students' spirit". Photo: AP
Opinion
Mr. Shangkong
by George Chen
Mr. Shangkong
by George Chen

Sincerity is prerequisite for fruitful talks

Both sides should agree electoral reform is the goal and take small steps towards achieving it

It has been increasingly clear that negotiation will be the only solution to peacefully end the Occupy Central movement. But what are the chances of the protesters and government reaching an agreement?

Last week, the propaganda machine on the mainland once again criticised Hong Kong student leaders for not being "sincere enough" to join negotiations with Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying Leung's administration. Shall we also ask how sincere the chief executive is in negotiating with the protesters?

Getting the police to clear out protesters with pepper spray and dogs on Friday - at a time when many different parties and individuals tried their best to get the government and student leaders to sit down for negotiations - was not a good way for Leung to show sincerity about engaging tens of thousands of protesters in the streets, who are a fair representation of the general public in Hong Kong.

To get the long-awaited negotiations started, Leung must take a more constructive approach to engage with the protest leaders instead of being provocative by criticising the protesters or even sending more police to make the already nervous sentiment in the streets even worse.

[CY] Leung must take a more constructive approach ... instead of being provocative

For our protest leaders, I also have some suggestions. Let's say electoral reform is like one kind of fruit. The government wants to convince you it is a strawberry and you say it is an apple. If we focus the debate on whether it is a strawberry or an apple, we will go nowhere and the debate will just waste time on both sides.

A more pragmatic approach might be to mutually acknowledge that we are in fact talking about fruit in general, rather than a car or an animal. Shall we sit down together based on this basic "fruit agreement"? As long as we can sit down at the same table and kick off our negotiations, the rest can be done step by step.

Last week, at a forum about US-China relations, former US president Jimmy Carter offered some thoughts on the Occupy Central protests in Hong Kong. Carter said the government should at least "honour the students' spirit" as they just wanted to let Hong Kong people have the basic right to choose their own leader who they can trust and make Hong Kong a better place for people to live in and for business to grow.

There is nothing wrong with such a fundamentally good desire demonstrated by the students. The government may have reasons to argue whether the students can do a better job to minimise the impact on social order, but the government can also be more sincere by acknowledging the students' passion for making Hong Kong a better place.

If the government considers students more as the enemy, then what negotiations are we talking about?

 

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Sincerity is prerequisite for fruitful talks
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