{"id":1729,"date":"2014-06-21T18:25:10","date_gmt":"2014-06-21T18:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/?p=1729"},"modified":"2014-06-21T18:25:10","modified_gmt":"2014-06-21T18:25:10","slug":"hong-kongs-most-dangerous-man-wants-people-to-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/hong-kongs-most-dangerous-man-wants-people-to-vote","title":{"rendered":"Hong Kong’s Most Dangerous Man Wants People to Vote"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Bruce Einhorn June 20, 2014<\/span>
\n\"\"
\nOccupy Central organizer Benny Tai
\nPhotograph by Bobby Yip\/Landov
\nBenny Tai, a soft-spoken law professor at the University of Hong Kong, is the man behind Occupy Central with Love and Peace, a pro-democracy movement that is threatening to stage civil disobedience in the streets of Hong Kong\u2019s financial district. That, as fellow activist Edward Chin joked as he introduced Tai at a media briefing yesterday, makes the professor \u201cthe most dangerous man in town.\u201d<\/p>\n

As it organizes an election of its own in Hong Kong that begins today, Tai\u2019s pro-democracy campaign is entering its most dangerous stage yet. \u201cThe movement now has reached a critical point,\u201d Tai told reporters. Critics have denounced Tai and his fellow activists, saying Occupy Central will lead to chaos in the center of Hong Kong. The group has also had to contend with cyber sabotage, following a hacking incident that targeted Occupy Central\u2019s website. The campaign, Tai said, \u201chas been under a wave of attack.\u201d<\/p>\n

Occupy Central isn\u2019t staging any sit-ins just yet. Instead, it is asking people to vote. Tai\u2019s group is organizing an unofficial citywide referendum that will last until June 29 to weigh public opinion on how to choose Hong Kong\u2019s next leaders. Since the city\u2019s return to Chinese rule in 1997, a small pro-Beijing committee has selected the chief executive, but China has promised some form of universal suffrage for the next election in 2017. The question is, what does universal suffrage mean? The pro-China side wants a screening process, with a committee that vets candidates first before allowing ordinary voters to decide. Tai and his fellow Occupy Central activists reject that, calling for \u201cpublic nomination\u201d of candidates so the Chinese government doesn\u2019t have a veto.<\/p>\n

From:http:\/\/www.businessweek.com\/articles\/2014-06-20\/hong-kongs-most-dangerous-man-wants-people-to-vote<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Bruce Einhorn June 20, 2014 Occupy Ce … 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":[317,90,451,452],"views":1011,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1729"}],"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=1729"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1732,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1729\/revisions\/1732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}