Occupy Central with Love and Peace

Organisers of the movement (from the left Reverend Chu Yiu-ming, Dr Benny Tai Yiu-ting, and Chan Kin-man) published their statement at a press conference on 27 March 2013.

Occupy Central with Love and Peace (OCLP) is a proposed nonviolent occupation protest for universal suffrage scheduled to take place in Central, Hong Kong in July 2014.

The campaign was initiated by Benny Tai Yiu-ting (Chinese: 戴耀廷), Associate Professor of Law at the University of Hong Kong, in January 2013. He predicted that at least 10,000 citizens would join the protest to take over Central in July 2014 if the universal suffrage for the 2017 Chief Executive election and 2020 Legislative Council Elections would not be carried out according to the "international standards".

Observers noted that the occupy movement campaign would likely occur after Qiao Xiaoyang, chairman of the Chinese National People's Congress Law Committee, stated that chief executive candidates were required to love both the country (China) and Hong Kong, and not confront the central government, effectively excluding candidates from the opposition pro-democracy camp.

Background

Main article: Democratic development in Hong Kong

The pro-democracy camp petitioned the Hong Kong government and Central People's Government for the full implementation of universal suffrage as promised in the Hong Kong Basic Law Article 45, which delineates the requirements for electing the chief executive. Members also cited language in Annex I in support of universal suffrage:

"The chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall be selected by election or through consultations held locally and be appointed by the Central People's Government."

"The method for selecting the chief executive shall be specified in the light of the actual situation in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and in accordance with the principle of gradual and orderly progress. The ultimate aim is the selection of the chief executive by universal suffrage upon nomination by a broadly representative nominating committee in accordance with democratic procedures."

On 29 December 2007, the National People's Congress Law Committee officially ruled on the issue of universal suffrage in Hong Kong:

that the election of the fifth chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in the year 2017 may be implemented by the method of universal suffrage; that after the chief executive is selected by universal suffrage, the election of the Legislative Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region may be implemented by the method of electing all the members by universal suffrage...

The Asia Times remarked that both proposals for the Legislative Council (LegCo) and for the chief executive were "hedged in with so many ifs and buts that there is no guarantee of Hong Kong getting anything at all... "

CY Leung, the incumbent chief executive of Hong Kong, is to submit the HK Government's recommendation to the PRC leadership on how to proceed with democratisation in the territory following consultations. A round of consultation ended in early 2014, and another round of consultation takes place in the second half. Chinese political leaders have since repeatedly declared that the chief executive, which is to be elected by universal suffrage in 2017 in accordance with promises and assurances previously given, "must conform to the standard of loving the country and loving Hong Kong". To that end, the government of Hong Kong, strongly backed by the PRC government, reiterated that CE nominees be screened by a "broadly representative nominating committee", and that there was no provision for civic nominations. The position was reaffirmed in a white paper published by the State Council on 10 June 2014.

On 16 January 2013, Benny Tai, Associate Professor at the University of Hong Kong, published an article in the Hong Kong Economic Journal in which he proposed an act of civil disobedience in Central, the business and financial centre of Hong Kong, to put pressure on the government if its universal suffrage proposals proved to be "fake" democracy.

Aims and plan

The Occupy Central attempts to strive for the universal suffrage through four steps: dialogue, deliberation, authorization by citizens (civil referendum) and civil disobedience (Occupy Central). It requires the government proposal must must satisfy the international standards in relation to universal suffrage, i.e. equal number of vote, equal weight for each vote and no unreasonable restrictions on the right to stand for election. The final proposal for the electoral reform should also be decided by the means of a democratic process, including deliberation and authorization by citizens. It also promises that the attempted civil disobedience shall be absolutely non-violent.

Civic referendum

See also: 2014 Hong Kong electoral reform consultation

Occupy Central with Love and Peace

20 June 2014 – 29 June 2014 (2014-06-29)
Civil Referendum
Voting system	Majority voting
For CE Election 2017, I support OCLP to submit this proposal to the Government:
Alliance for True Democracy Proposal   42.1% Students Proposal   38.4% People Power Proposal   10.4% Abstention   8.9%
If the government proposal cannot satisfy international standards allowing genuine choices by electors, LegCo should veto it, my stance is:
LegCo should veto   87.8% LegCo should not veto   7.5% Abstention   4%

The Occupy Central movement commissioned HKPOP to run a poll on three proposals – all of which involve allowing citizens to directly nominate candidates – to present to the Beijing government. It ran from 20 to 29 June 2014. The three proposals chosen by 2,500 members of Occupy Central supporters were considered to be more radical; proposals by more moderate pan-democrats that avoided the notion of civic nomination were effectively squeezed out. This, and the decision of People Power and the League of Social Democrats to go back on pledges to support the alliance's proposals, and of People Power to make its own proposal that included civil nomination, pointed to a split in pan democrat ranks.

A total of 792,808 people, equivalent to a fifth of the registered electorate, took part in the poll by either voting online or going to designated polling stations,. The two referendum questions were "For CE Election 2017, I support OCLP to submit this proposal to the Government: 1. Alliance for True Democracy Proposal, 2. People Power Proposal, 3. Students Proposal, or Abstention" and "If the government proposal cannot satisfy international standards allowing genuine choices by electors, LegCo should veto it, my stance is: LegCo should veto, LegCo should not veto, or Abstention" respectively.

The proposal tabled by the Alliance for True Democracy, a group comprising 26 of the 27 pan-democratic lawmakers, won the unofficial "referendum" by securing 331,427 votes, or 42.1 per cent of the 787,767 valid ballots. A joint blueprint put forward by Scholarism and the Hong Kong Federation of Students came second with 302,567 votes (38.4 per cent), followed by a People Power's proposal, which clinched 81,588 votes (10.4 per cent). All three call for the public to be allowed to nominate candidates for the 2017 chief executive election, an idea repeatedly dismissed by Beijing as inconsistent with the Basic Law. However, the Alliance's "three track" proposal would allow the public, the nominating committee, as well as political parties, to put forward candidates. Under their plan, candidates can be nominated by 35,000 registered voters or by a party which secured at least five per cent of the vote in the last Legco election. It did not specify on the formation of the nominating committee, only stating that it should be "as democratic as it can be". The two other proposals would only allow the public and a nominating committee to put forward candidates. 691,972 voters (87.8 per cent) agreed that the Legislative Council should veto any reform proposal put forward by the government if it failed to meet international standards, compared with 7.5 per cent who disagreed.

The unofficial "referendum" infuriated Beijing and prompted a flurry of vitriolic editorials, preparatory police exercises and cyber-attacks. As the poll opened, it was quickly hit by what one US-based cyber-security firm called the "most sophisticated onslaught ever seen". "[The attackers] continue to use different strategies over time," Matthew Prince, the chief executive of CloudFlare, a firm that helped defend against the attack, told the South China Morning Post. "It is pretty unique and sophisticated." The firm could not identify the origin of the attack. Mainland officials and newspapers have called the poll "illegal" while many have condemned the Occupy Central, claiming it is motivated by foreign "anti-China forces" and will damage Hong Kong's standing as a financial capital. On Tuesday, Zhang Junsheng, a former deputy director of Xinhua News Agency in Hong Kong, called the poll "meaningless". The state-run Global Times mocked the referendum as an "illegal farce" and "a joke". The territory's chief executive, Leung Chun-Ying, said: "Nobody should place Hong Kong people in confrontation with mainland Chinese citizens." Mainland censors have meanwhile scrubbed social media sites clean of references to Occupy Central.

Before the referendum, the State Council issued a white paper claiming "comprehensive jurisdiction" over the territory. "The high degree of autonomy of the HKSAR [Hong Kong Special Administrative Region] is not full autonomy, nor a decentralised power," it said. "It is the power to run local affairs as authorised by the central leadership." Michael DeGolyer, director of the transition project at Hong Kong Baptist University, said: "It's very clear from surveys that the vast majority of the people voting in this referendum are doing it as a reaction to this white paper – particularly because they see it as threatening the rule of law ... That's not negotiating on the one country two systems principle, that's demolishing it."

Reactions

Hong Kong government

Commissioner of Police Andy Tsang Wai-hung said on the sidelines of a district council meeting that any attempt to block major thoroughfares in Central will not be tolerated and warned people to think twice about joining the Occupy Central protest, adding "any collective act to hold up traffic unlawfully" would not be tolerated.

Chinese government

Wang Guangya, director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, when asked if he believed the Occupy Central plan was beneficial to the city, said "I think Hong Kong compatriots don't want to see Hong Kong being messed up. Hong Kong needs development."

Qiao Xiaoyang, chairman of the National People's Congress Law Committee, was quoted as accusing the "opposition camp" of "fuelling" the Occupy Central plan. Qiao said the plan was only "partly truthful", "complex" and a "risk-everything" proposition.

In October 2013 the party-controlled Global Times objected to Occupy organizers meeting with Democratic Progressive Party figures such as Shih Ming-teh in Taiwan, saying that the DPP, the main opposition party to Taiwan's governing KMT, was "pro-independence." In a piece titled "HK opposition at risk of becoming enemy of the State," Occupy organizers were warned that "collaborating with the pro-independence forces in Taiwan will put Hong Kong's future at the risk of violence," and advised that "if they collaborated... massive chaos might be created, which will compel the central government to impose tough measures to maintain Hong Kong's stability." A few days later the paper said that Occupy Central was a "potentially violent concept" and asked "Why are Benny Tai Yiu-ting, who initiated the Occupy Central campaign and his supporters so bold as to challenge the central government with a bloody proposal over the issue of chief executive election procedures?"

Pro-democracy camp

Civic Party lawmaker Kwok Ka-ki said he saw the ideas as "the last resort" to pressure Beijing and the SAR administration to introduce universal suffrage. "If Beijing breaks its promise of universal suffrage," he added, "we will have no option but to launch such a civil disobedience movement."

Albert Ho Chun-yan of Democratic Party claimed he would resign from his legislator post to grant Hong Kong people the opportunity to vote in a de facto referendum to pave way for the Occupy Central movement, just as the pan-democrats launched the by-election in 2010 for universal suffrage in 2012.

The pan-democrats' reactions were not uniformly supportive. Wong Yuk-man has expressed fears that the movement would deteriorate, while Wong Yeung-tat was strongly opposed to the movement.

Pro-Beijing camp

Cheung Kwok-kwan, vice-chairman of the pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, anti-democrats, saw "a radical move" in any thoughts of occupying Central. He questioned whether Hong Kong could "afford the negative impact of people staging a rally to occupy and even paralyze Central for a universal suffrage model". He noted that it was "a mainstream idea" in the SAR not to resort to radical means to fight for democracy.

Rita Fan Hsu Lai-tai, a National People's Congress Standing Committee member, warned that Hong Kong would have to pay a "high price" in the event of a stand-off in Central. She has been quoted as saying, "If you occupy Central, please think of the impact it would have on Hong Kong's image. All our economic and financial activities would be affected. Don't think only of yourself. Think of the whole city, which would suffer if you proceed with your action."

National People's Congress Deputy and Executive Councilor Fanny Law Fan Chiu-fan suggested that allowing a group of just 10,000 people to come up with a "consensus" over the reform package without the majority of Hong Kong people taking part would be an improper consultation procedure. She urged the opposition camp to show respect for each other through a rational and pragmatic debate over the issue. She added that there was no need to resort to "extreme action" and claimed that it was not too late to begin consultations next year.

Others

Leo F. Goodstadt, who served as adviser to Chris Patten, the last British-appointed governor of Hong Kong, and chief adviser for the Central Policy Unit of the colonial government, said that it would be normal for protesters to "paralyze Central" because "it is part of their right to protest" and Hong Kong residents already possessed the right to criticise the government through protests since the colonial era. In response to concerns that the Occupy Central campaign would hurt Hong Kong's status as an international financial center, Goodstadt cited the frequent mass protests in New York and London, two leading international financial centres, as having a minimal effect on the business environment there.

Cardinal Joseph Zen has given his conditional support to the campaign, but stated that he would not participate in the movement for an indefinite period. The incumbent bishop Cardinal John Tong Hon expressed that he did not encourage followers to join the movement, suggesting that both parties should debate universal suffrage through dialogue.

Reverend Ng Chung-man of the Evangelical Free Church of China publicly denounced the Occupy Central plan in his church's newsletter. Ng wrote that while "some Christians are advocating...occupying Central to force the governments to give in to their demands...civil disobedience is acceptable biblically only...when people's rights to religion and to live are under threat". He exhorted believers to pray for those in authority, in an act of "active subordination" to "relatively just governments".

Timeline

• 16 January 2013 – Associate Professor of Law at the University of Hong Kong, Benny Tai Yiu-ting wrote an article 公民抗命的最大殺傷力武器 (Civil disobedience's deadliest weapon) in Hong Kong Economic Journal suggesting an occupation of Central.
• 24 March 2013 – Qiao Xiaoyang, chairman of the Law Committee under the National People's Congress Standing Committee stated that chief executive candidates must be persons who love the country and love Hong Kong, who do not insist on confronting the central government.
• 27 March 2013 – Organisers of the "Occupy Central" movement, Benny Tai, Reverend Chu Yiu-ming and Chinese University's Sociology professor Chan Kin-man officially announced at a news conference that they will start promoting the protest in 2014 if the government's proposals for universal suffrage fail to meet international standards.
• 9 June 2013 – First Deliberation Day.
• 9 March 2014 – Second Deliberation Day.
• 6 May 2014 – Third Deliberation Day.
• 22 June 2014 – Civil referendum.
• 29 June 2014 – The civil referendum ends with 787,767 valid evotes, or about 22% of registered Hong Kong's registered voters.
• 1 July 2014 — The annual 1 July marches on the 17th anniversary of the return of Hong Kong to Chinese rule draws over 500,000 protesters (100,000 according to officials) and over 500 arrests.

External links

• Official Website