Hong Kong’s Leader Vows to Stay as Resignation Calls Get Louder
By Fion Li, Jasmine Ng and Janet Ong
October 12, 2014 12:41 PM EDT
Photographer: Brent Lewin/Bloomberg
Alex Chow, secretary general of the Hong Kong Federation of Students, left, listens on stage as Joshua Wong, leader of the student group Scholarism, speaks outside the Central Government Offices in the Admiralty business district of Hong Kong, on Oct. 11, 2014.
Hong Kong’s protests entered a third week with leader Leung Chun-ying saying he won’t resign amid growing calls for him to step down and that there is “zero chance” China will change its decision to vet candidates in elections for the city’s top position.
Protest leaders demanded that Hong Kong’s law enforcement and the legislative council investigate Leung’s payments from engineering companyUGL Ltd. (UGL) Opposition lawmakers said yesterday they would seek to set up a committee to probe Leung or even impeach him, while the city’s anti-corruption body is handling a complaint lodged against him. A former HSBC Holdings Plc chairman said Leung could even face calls to resign from Beijing amid President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign.
“Leung is embattled by scandals,” Benny Tai, founder of the Occupy Central With Love and Peace group of protesters, said yesterday, while addressing thousands of demonstrators at a rally. Leung’s resignation would open the door for a solution, he said in an interview.
Leung said yesterday that he didn’t do anything wrong morally or legally by accepting the money from UGL. He said he has never considered resigning as he faced questions about the deal with the Australian engineering company that paid him HK$50 million ($6.4 million) after he became the city’s leader. He denied any wrongdoing in an interview broadcast by Hong Kong’s TVB News yesterday.
“I believe my stepping down will not solve the problem since they are demanding the National People’s Congress to withdraw its decision and for civil nomination, which is impossible,” Leung said in the interview before he left to attend a forum in the southern Chinese city ofGuangzhou.
Protesters Return
The payment was for bonus and wages owed to Leung for his work at DTZ Holdings Plc, which UGL acquired, Leung’s office said in a statement last week. Leung had resigned as the Asia Pacific director of DTZ, a property broker, in November 2011 before he became chief executive, and the payments weren’t for services provided after that time, the statement said.
Protesters have blocked some major roads in the city for two weeks and have pitched hundreds of tents as a show of discontent toward China’s decision over the city’s 2017 leadership election. The number of protesters on Hong Kong’s streets, which had dropped to hundreds from demonstrators’ estimates of as many as 200,000, picked up again on Oct. 10 as the government and students blamed each other for the collapse of talks. The Hong Kong dollar fell by the most in almost two weeks on Oct. 10.
Canceled Talks
Hong Kong Chief Secretary Carrie Lam on Oct. 9 announced the government canceled talks scheduled for the next day with student leaders, saying they can’t meet unless students recognize the legal framework China laid down for the 2017 vote in the city. Pro-democracy protest leaders called on more supporters to flood the streets to pressure the government after the talks were suspended.
Lam, the No. 2 government official, was scheduled to return to Hong Kong yesterday night after leading other senior official to attend the 10th Pan-Pearl River Delta forum and trade fair in Guangzhou, according to a government statement.
“Whether his resignation is useful or not, stepping down is inevitable and reasonable given he has done so many things wrong,” Lester Shum, the vice-secretary of the Hong Kong Federation of Students, told the thousands of protesters at a rally yesterday. “We are having civil disobedience so to let the government know it has done something very wrong with the political reforms.”
Tear Gas
Leung also defended the decision to use tear gas on protesters on Sept. 28, which he said was made by the police commanders on site. He said he had been involved in the call to end the use of the tear gas.
“The police cordons were charged repeatedly” and there could have been serious casualties and a stampede had tear gas not been used to disperse the crowd, he said. Upon arrival in Guangzhou, Leung changed to another hotel without informing Hong Kong media, Radio Television Hong Kongreported yesterday.
“Leung Chun-ying is shifting the responsibility of using tear gas to the police,” student leader Joshua Wong said yesterday. The Hong Kong government is out of control and must take responsibility for firing the tear gas and for unilaterally canceling talks, Wong said. He also urged Chinese President Xi Jinping to respond to the students’ open letter, which said they don’t want a revolution and their civil disobedience was triggered by the city’s government misrepresenting local views on electoral reform.
‘Universal Suffrage’
Wong, who turns 18 years old today, said in an interview his birthday wish was “for Hong Kong to have true universal suffrage.” The founder of student activist group Scholarism was given a yellow umbrella-shaped cake this week, according to his Facebook posting. Umbrellas have become a symbol of the movement since they were used to protect against pepper spray used against them from police.
Student protesters in Hong Kong lack maturity and understanding of the world with their views, the South China Morning Post cited David Eldon, who was HSBC chairman for Hong Kong between 1999 and 2005, as saying in his blog. Eldon also said that Leung could face calls to step down from Beijing because President Xi has made very clear his “abhorrence” of corruption.
To contact the reporters on this story: Fion Li in Hong Kong atfli59@bloomberg.net; Jasmine Ng in Singapore at jng299@bloomberg.net; Janet Ong in Hong Kong atjong3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tan Hwee Ann athatan@bloomberg.net Allen Wan
http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-12/hong-kong-s-leader-vows-to-stay-as-resignation-calls-get-louder.html
