Global Times urges ‘coercive measures’ against Occupy Central protesters
Editorial headlined ‘No compromise of rule on HK chief’ calls for hard line on pro-democracy protesters
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A state-run newspaper on Tuesday called for “coercive measures” against pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong, as China’s rubber-stamp legislature mulls the election method for the city’s chief executive.
Lawmakers on the standing committee of the National People’s Congress on Monday started reviewing a report from Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying on the issue, Xinhua said earlier.
The meeting comes with public discontent in Hong Kong at its highest for years over perceived interference by Beijing and growing divisions over how the city’s next leader should be chosen in 2017.
Universal suffrage has been promised, but the pro-democracy Occupy Central group has pledged to mobilise thousands of protesters to block the financial district later this year if authorities reject a public right to nominate candidates for the post, currently chosen by a pro-Beijing committee.
Beijing and city officials have criticised Occupy Central as illegal, radical and potentially violent.
, which is owned by the Communist Party’s mouthpiece the and often adopts a nationalist tone, called on authorities to take a hard line against protest, urging Beijing not to give in to pressure.
“If these activities pose a shocking threat to Hong Kong or continue unabated, enormously dampening the city’s functions, it is imperative that the Hong Kong government adopt coercive measures,” it said in an editorial.
“Even the worst situation is much better than a constitutional crisis with the rise of a chief executive confronting Beijing that will later be compelled to outlaw him,” it said.
The government must knock out the campaigners’ “unrealistic illusions” and make the most aggressive activists “pay for their illegal confrontational behaviour”, it said in the editorial, headlined “No compromise of rule on HK chief”.
“As long as we do not allow Hong Kong to fall into the Western sphere of influence, the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong will have inexhaustible resources to make extreme opposition groups and their supporting forces desperate,” it added.
