Hong Kong | Sparse crowds at anniversary march as democracy movement struggles

A protester burns a picture of Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying during a flag raising ceremony to mark the 18th anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover to China

Hong Kong’s annual march against Chinese rule attracted a fraction of last year’s turnout as democracy activists struggle to muster supporters after a year of protests failed to wrest political concessions out of Beijing.
Aside from summer heat of more than 32 Celsius, activists are battling internal divisions, protest fatigue and concern that no rally can sway the Communist Party to allow Hong Kong people to freely choose the city’s leader.
Some who took to the streets yesterday seemed resigned after the 79-day Occupy movement failed to bring China to the bargaining table over its plans to vet the candidates for the first election of the city’s chief executive.
“I don’t think it is going to change a thing, it didn’t do much in the past and is unlikely to change anything in the near future,” said Danny Tang, a 36-year-old secondary school teacher who attended the march for the fourth straight year with his wife and five-year-old son. “It’s unlikely to change anything under CY Leung’s government, but I do cherish my right to express my discontent.”
The protest comes less than two weeks after pro-democracy legislators blocked a China-backed proposal that would’ve let an elite committee screen candidates for the leadership election due in 2017. While the result was an embarrassment for the Communist Party, it means the election will be scrapped and the next chief executive will be selected by the same panel that has chosen all three local leaders since the U.K. left in 1997.
Organizers had predicted that 100,000 would attend yesterday’s rally. Actual turnout appeared to be a fraction of that number and nowhere near the 150,000 of last year’s march. Protesters held banners calling for Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying to resign and for the city’s de-facto constitution to be amended to permit free elections. Some carried the yellow umbrellas that became the symbol of last year’s protest movement.
Democracy advocates are trying to convince Leung to revisit an issue that has already plunged the city into one crisis. Leung and the Communist Party’s local representatives say they want to set aside the debate and turn their attention to the economic and social situation issues in the so-called special administrative region.
“We can’t carry on spending this kind of effort on just one issue on the government’s agenda,” Leung told reporters Tuesday. “It is the common wish of the people of Hong Kong, of Hong Kong SAR Government, and the central authorities, that we should move on, that we should focus on other important areas that Hong Kong faces.”
The battle over election reform has exposed rifts in both of the city’s main political camps. Pro-establishment lawmakers criticized each other after a botched walk-out during the June 18 vote resulted in an unexpectedly lopsided 28-8 result against the election plan.
One democratic lawmaker, Ronny Tong, announced his resignation after the vote, citing his desire for a more moderate approach to Beijing. Differences over how best to challenge China contributed to half of the city’s eight universities leaving the Hong Kong Federation of Students, a main organizer of last year’s Occupy protests.
The divisions have made it harder for democracy advocates to muster numbers while others reevaluate whether protests are the best tactic. A June 14 rally attracted about 3,000, far fewer than the 50,000 predicted by the organizer, the Civil Human Rights Front.
“After the 79 days of occupation that apparently couldn’t change anything, social movement activists have been exploring new, more militant form of action,” said Ho-Fung Hung, associate professor at Johns Hopkins University, who studies Hong Kong and China. “The march will still attract some loyal supporters, but it becomes merely a fund raising event of the mainstream democrats.” Vinicy Chan and Natasha Khan, Bloomberg