{"id":1709,"date":"2014-06-20T18:35:07","date_gmt":"2014-06-20T18:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/?p=1709"},"modified":"2014-06-20T18:35:07","modified_gmt":"2014-06-20T18:35:07","slug":"over-200000-vote-as-hong-kong-democracy-referendum-kicks-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/over-200000-vote-as-hong-kong-democracy-referendum-kicks-off","title":{"rendered":"Over 200,000 vote as Hong Kong democracy ‘referendum’ kicks off"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY EMILY CHUNG AND NIKKI SUN<\/span><\/p>\n

HONG KONG Fri Jun 20, 2014 6:09am EDT<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Supporters hold banners and placards at Hong Kong’s financial Central district during a kick-off ceremony to urge people to vote in an unofficial referendum June 20, 2014.
\nCREDIT: REUTERS\/BOBBY YIP
\n(Reuters) – More than 200,000 people voted for full democracy in Hong Kong within the first few hours of an unofficial online referendum on Friday in a civil campaign that has sparked warnings from China’s Communist Party leaders.<\/p>\n

Social tensions have steadily risen in the former British colony that returned to Chinese rule in 1997 – with pro-democracy activists threatening to blockade part of the city’s financial district if China doesn’t allow opposition candidates to run in a 2017 election.<\/p>\n

While Beijing says Hong Kong can go ahead with a city-wide vote in 2017 for the city’s top leader, the most far-reaching experiment in democracy in China since the Communist takeover in 1949, senior Chinese officials have ruled out allowing the public to nominate candidates.<\/p>\n

From: http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/2014\/06\/20\/us-hongkong-vote-idUSKBN0EV0E520140620<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY EMILY CHUNG AND NIKKI SUN HONG KONG F … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,370],"tags":[317,90],"views":748,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1709"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1709"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1710,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1709\/revisions\/1710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}