Peaceful rally provides chance for Hong Kong ‘reset’

The biggest rally in weeks was a show of mass support that resets Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement.

Organisers said more than 1.7 million people attended the overall rally, during which people passed into and out of Hong Kong’s Victoria Park. Picture: Getty Images.

Hong Kong’s biggest rally in a weeks was a show of mass support that resets the movement opposing Beijing’s tightening grip on Hong Kong.

The peaceful procession in torrential rain on Sunday was in contrast to recent weekends which have seen bloody battles between protesters and police spread across the city and shut the city’s airport last Monday and Tuesday.

It heaps pressure on Hong Kong officials to resolve the city’s biggest political crisis in decades.

Hundreds of thousands of mainly black-clad protesters of all ages rallied in Victoria Park, the starting point of some of the biggest demonstrations through 11 weekends of unrest, with crowds overflowing into the streets. Many marched 3km to the city’s financial district, clogging roads, in ­defiance of a police ban on any procession outside the park.

The scenes, which evoked two giant marches in early June, show that the movement is far from fizzling out, increasing pressure on local officials and their masters in Beijing who have struggled to contain the social unrest.

“With this huge number we can say that the people of Hong Kong have revitalised and ­reauthorised the campaign,” said Bonnie Leung, vice-convener of the Civil Human Rights Front, which organised the rally. “The campaign has the support but the government doesn’t.”

The organisers said more than 1.7 million people attended the overall rally, during which people passed into and out of the park. Police said there were 128,000 in the park at the peak period.

This weekend was the first in nearly a month without police firing teargas. The calmer mood may offer an opportunity for officials to consider ways to initiate steps ­toward resolving the crisis, some analysts said.

Over the past few days, the Trump administration has spoken out more strongly about its concerns over the unrest. On Thursday, Donald Trump urged President Xi Jinping to “humanely solve the problem in Hong Kong”.

Billed by organisers as peaceful and rational, Sunday’s rally saw streets thronged for hours. Protesters chanted slogans demanding their rights while a sound system in one district blasted out Do You Hear the People Sing? from Les Miserables. By midnight, a few dozen remained occupying a highway near the government’s headquarters, defying other protesters’ chants to go home.

The two massive protests in June against a proposed extradition bill — which would have ­allowed people in Hong Kong to be sent to China for trial — brought the city to a standstill. Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam suspended the bill. The campaign has since broadened into a wider movement calling for democratic reform and driven by anger at police use of force to counter protests and make arrests.

Neither Ms Lam, city officials nor those in Beijing have made any concessions since.

Ms Lam so far hasn’t offered public dialogue with opposition figures. As the city’s economy increasingly feels the strain from a summer of unrest, she tearfully pleaded last week for citizens not to send the partly autonomous Chinese city into “an abyss”.

Beijing has taken a tougher line, accusing some protesters of resorting to near-terrorist acts, ­demanding that Hong Kong police crack down hard and insisting that those involved in violent protests be severely punished.

“The peaceful demonstration should be seized on as an opening by Lam to make political efforts to resolve the crisis,” said Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute in London, for ­example inaugurating a truth and reconciliation process. “Doing so now may well get most demonstrators to stay home and return to school and universities as September beckons.”

Student activists have in recent days called for a boycott of classes in early September, when the new academic year begins.

The Wall Street Journal