STUART LAU AND JEFFIE LAM
UPDATED : Wednesday, 06 April, 2016, 9:19pm
A poster featuring ex-Scholarism spokeswoman Agnes Chow, released ahead of Demosisto’s launch. Photo: Demosisto
Transitioning from Scholarism to Demosisto, student leader Joshua Wong Chi-fung is due to officially announce the city’s newest political party on Sunday.
Wong was to unveil the new group alongside Occupy movement comrades Nathan Law Kwun-chung, Oscar Lai Man-lok and Agnes Chow Ting.
While the specifics of the announcement are unclear, Wong, the face of Hongkongers’ pursuit of democracy during the Occupy campaign in 2014, had previously called for a referendum to decide whether to change ‘one country, two systems’ or even to achieve self-determination in 2047, when the promises under the Sino-British Joint Declaration come to an end.
The party, whose name was made public in a press release yesterday, is also expected to field candidates in the Legislative Council elections later this year.
The party’s formation comes as the city hotly debates the quest for Hong Kong independence.
Wong yesterday crossed swords with a staunch supporter of the chief executive, who likened advocating independence to “bullying” and “robbery”.
Kaizer Lau Ping-cheung, deputy director of Leung Chun-ying’s election campaign team in 2012, said if Wong put forward a referendum on Hong Kong’s fate beyond 2047, “he should seek the opinions of the 1.3 billion Chinese citizens first”.
Wong, ex-convenor of the now-disbanded, student-led group Scholarism, said he accepted the model of “one country, two systems” if the city could implement democracy and autonomy under Chinese sovereignty.
‘One country, two systems’ had lost its way “in the past 19 years, especially after Leung took office”, said Wong, citing Beijing’s 2014 white paper stating “complete jurisdiction” over Hong Kong, and the recent case of the missing booksellers.
Lau, an adviser to Our Hong Kong Foundation – a think tank backed by former local officials – said the government should beef up national education to let students better understand China, adding that the country had made “huge progress” on human rights.
But Wong cast doubts on the mainland’s sincerity in understanding young Hongkongers, as he could not even enter the country. He said oppression would only boost pro-independence sentiment.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/1934053/occupy-movement-leaders-reinvented-joshua-wong-announce-hong
