Freedom Fighter

Why Jimmy Lai is the only Hong Kong multi-millionaire standing up to China

By Jenni Marsh

Jimmy Lai met with US Vice President Mike Pence in July 2019.

Hong Kong --  Jimmy Lai has been a public target for decades.
It all started after the Hong Kong business tycoon — a refugee from China — reinvented himself in the mid-1990s as the founder of the city's provocative, anti-Beijing tabloid, Apple Daily.
One of the advertisements that introduced the newspaper to the world made Lai's point in the bluntest of ways: By showing Lai sitting in a dark warehouse with a red apple on his scalp, being pelted with incoming arrows fired by a shadowy figure.
Since then, Lai's role as one of Hong Kong's most prominent rabble-rousers has threatened his fortune, subjected him to death threats and made him a symbol of the city's tensions with communist China.
When Britain handed Hong Kong back to China in 1997, the city was guaranteed its own legal system and certain democratic freedoms until 2047, when it will likely return in total to Beijing. 

Over the past three months, millions have flooded Hong Kong's highways in marches against Beijing's aggressive encroachment on those treasured freedoms.
Apple Daily has become the city's biggest official champion of that movement. 

The newspaper of the protesters. 

Its front pages rally citizens to go out and march, it has given away posters to raise at demonstrations, and it regularly taunts the government for its failures.
In a town of tycoons, Lai is the only multi-millionaire who is prepared to openly jeopardize his fortune for Hong Kong's freedom. 

The 70-year-old is frequently seen at the marches, in the pouring rain or blazing summer heat.
To his supporters, Lai is a brave democracy fighter. 

But his detractors say that Lai and his muckraking publication are a black hand for the United States and cause chaos. 

In recent years, firebombs have been lobbed at his gated home, an obituary claiming he died from AIDS has run in a rival publication and Lai's political donations have subjected him to an anti-corruption case. 

Lai denied wrongdoing, and the case against him was ultimately dropped.
That Lai has ties with the United States is undeniable. 

Last month, he flew to Washington to discuss with US Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton how fundamental Hong Kong's freedom is to the US' standoff with China.
"The new Cold War is actually a rivalry of competing values," Lai says, framing the current US-China trade war as a standoff of between democracy and authoritarianism. 

"We in Hong Kong are fighting for the shared values of the US against China. We are fighting their war in the enemy camp."
It's a battle Lai says he's prepared to die for.

Chinese refugee
Lai had already led an extraordinary life by the time he founded Next Digital group, which owns Apple Daily, in the 1980s.
As the Great Chinese Famine gripped mainland China in 1960, Lai smuggled himself out of the southern mainland province of Guangdong and into Hong Kong in the bottom of a fishing boat. 

He arrived in the city at the age of 12 and dirt poor.
Lai says he became an odd jobs guy at a textile factory, making 60 Hong Kong dollars ($7) a month and living in an apartment with 10 others in the slum neighborhood of Sham Shui Po -- still one of Hong Kong's most impoverished districts.

The Hollywood Knitwear Factory in Kwun Tong in the 1970s when Hong Kong's textile industry was booming.

On his first day, he recalls how coworkers took him for breakfast. 

Relief from "the anxiety of hunger" was overwhelming, says Lai. 

"This freedom was the first feeling I had about Hong Kong and it never disappointed me," Lai says. "Never, until now."
After the Communists assumed power of China in 1949, Hong Kong's population swelled by 1,000 people a day during the 1950s as Chinese migrants flooded over the border. 

Most were "daring and entrepreneurial" survivors willing to take risks, Lai recalls. 

His twin sister was one of the so-called freedom swimmers, who literally swam from China to the city. 

She went on to become a major property developer in Canada.
"Hong Kong was a land of opportunity," Lai says of that era.
Within two decades, Lai had learned English, worked his way up the factory floor to the position of salesman and decided to start his own retail line. 

On one trip to New York during fabric sampling season, he bought a pizza. 

Written on the napkin was the name Giordano.
That became the name of his wildly successful, casual men's clothing chain, which made Lai his first fortune.
"I was stupid enough to think that if I called it Giordano, people would think that it's an Italian brand name," he says. 

It worked. 

By 1992, the group had 191 outlets, made 9 million garments annually and had a turnover of 1.6 billion Hong Kong dollars ($211 million).

Shoppers pass a Giordano retail store on a rainy day in Hong Kong, 22 March 2005.

"He's kind of a legend in terms of his business success," says Clement So, associate dean in the school of journalism at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. 

"Not only for what he did in the news media but in other kinds of industry."
Business was booming, but two things happened in the late 1980s that would derail the course of Lai's life.
First, on June 4, 1989, tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square to disperse young pro-democracy protesters, changing China forever. 

Estimates of the death toll range from several hundred to thousands.
Lai says he wasn't political at the time, "but I always had a very strong yearning for freedom because of my experience in China."
Hong Kong was still under British rule but barreling towards reunification with China in 1997. 

As the city watched the Tiananmen crackdown in horror, Giordano began producing T-shirts with pro-student slogans.
Around the same time, Lai says he got divorced from his first wife. 

"I thought I was a very eligible guy," he says. 

"That was something shocking to me."
Shortly afterward, Lai was interviewed by local journalist Theresa Lai. 

The pair fell in love and married. 

Next, he became a media baron.

An Apple a day
Today Lai lives in a white, gated house in an upmarket nook of Kowloon. 

Security staff are stationed outside the property. 

Paparazzi from communist newspapers photograph all who leave and enter, putting pressure on Lai's personal life and looking for signs that he meets with pro-US figures.
Inside, melodious Chinese hwamei birds chirp in tall white cages, dramatic art works adorn the walls, while giant bromeliads and orchids brighten each corner. 

"I love flowers," says Lai, with intermittent clips of an upper-class British accent, as he enjoys a breakfast of strawberries and egg sandwiches served on china platters.
The figure he cuts at home, where he regularly hosts politicians, journalists and influential figures to discuss Hong Kong's democratic future -- or lack of it -- is in stark contrast to his reputation as a brash, instinct-driven, ex-factory manager whose formal education ended in primary school.
That public persona began in 1994, when Lai published an incendiary column in a magazine owned by his Next Digital group, describing then Chinese Premier Li Peng, known as the "butcher of Beijing" for his role in the Tiananmen crackdown, as "the son of a turtle's egg with zero IQ" — a profoundly offensive slur in Chinese.

Jimmy Lai with his Chinese-language Apple Daily newspaper which sparked a price war when it launched in 1995.

Beijing responded then as it might do now. 

It penalized his clothing business.
Lai says Giordano's licenses were revoked across much of mainland China. 

In 1994, Lai sold his stake in the company, and the following year he launched Apple Daily, with a 100 million Hong Kong dollar promotional campaign, two years before the British handed the city back to China.
"It's my nature to be a rebel -- to be a revolutionary," Lai says. 

"I express it in business. Whenever I am in business, I create something different from the norm. That's the reason why I have been successful more than other people. I don't believe in incremental improvement."
He applied the mass-market ethos of Giordano to his newspaper: It was low cost, populist and sensational. 

Modeled visually on USA Today, it "shook the media landscape in Hong Kong in a revolutionary way," says Clement So, the Chinese University of Hong Kong associate dean. 

The paper didn't care for balanced reporting: This was advocacy journalism, with a strong dose of saucy celebrity gossip.
On news stands, Lai sparked a citywide price war, virtually giving away the sensational title at two Hong Kong dollars (25 cents), the price vendors charged to sell it. 

"Other papers quickly imitated without much success," says So. 

"The style of writing, the use of big photos. The pagination. Everything. There was a term called 'Apple-ization.'"
The newspaper became the city's most-talked about outlet -- a reputation it has maintained through its pioneering Apple Extra platform, which controversially animates breaking news events from murders to protests. 

The publication also found big success in Taiwan, a self-governed Chinese democracy which Beijing claims as its own territory. 

"Apple Daily was very lucrative in the beginning," says Willy Lam, a professor in history at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
By 2008, Lai was worth $1.2 billion, according to the Forbes rich list.

Jimmy Lai protests during 2014's Umbrella Movement for democracy in Hong Kong.

With other media moguls unwilling to risk the commercial fall out of facing off with Beijing post-1997, Apple Daily became the city's sole publication regularly criticizing China. 

"They were so afraid of the Communists, they left me an independent media market almost to myself," Lai says.
The paper's uncompromising stance coincided with swathes of Hong Kong's media becoming more pro-Beijing.

"Basically, today people choose their media depending on what is their political affiliation," says Michael Tien, a pro-Beijing lawmaker and fellow textile tycoon whose G2000 clothing chain has more than 700 outlets globally. 

Few Hong Kongers back Beijing. 

Many are pro-democracy. 

Supporters of democracy and freedom identify as "yellow ribbon."

Many make a point of defining themselves as Hong Kongers, to distinguish their identity from the Chinese living across the border.
For Lai, a Hong Konger is someone from a small Chinese island who shares the values of the West. "The Hong Kong identity this time ... has really emerged much more into our consciousness," he says. 

"We identify as Hong Konger like never before."
In early 2018, a 19-year-old Hong Kong resident allegedly killed his pregnant girlfriend in Taiwan and returned to the city before being arrested. 

There was nothing Taiwanese police could do; Hong Kong had no extradition agreement with Taiwan, or any Chinese territory.
In March 2019, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam proposed a solution: an update to the city's fugitive laws that would allow criminals to be extradited to Taiwan -- and mainland China.
Lai was in the United States when the bill was announced and was warned by a US politician over breakfast about the danger it posed. 

"I really alerted myself," remembers Lai. 

"I looked at it again and said, 'Shit, this is horrible.' I knew it was going to be a big thing."
He was right. 

The bill ended up sparking nearly three months of often violent demonstrations in Hong Kong, with more than 800 mostly young people arrested on charges including "rioting". 

Protesters have paralyzed the city's airport on two occasions.
Speaking to Lai it seems that many of his defining moments were sparked by America. 

The name "Giordano" came from a New York pizza house napkin; when the brand initially struggled to make money, a trip to McDonald's inspired Lai to streamline its offerings, as the US burger chain had done; Apple Daily was modeled on the USA Today.
His top aide in Hong Kong, Mark Simon, is the son of a former CIA employee.
That last detail never fails to tantalize onlookers. 

For decades, one of the key charges against Lai has been that he is a CIA stooge, and the Apple Daily a tool of the United States.
Earlier this month, China's state-run media branded Lai and three other well-known pro-democracy figures in the city as Hong Kong's "Gang of Four" -- a reference to the group that tried to overthrow Mao Zedong and seize power from the Communist Party in the 1970s.
The People's Daily claimed Lai was part of a quartet of "secretive middlemen and modern traitors," as Beijing tried to blame the unrest in Hong Kong on foreign forces.
The pro-Beijing lawmaker Tien, for one, believes that Washington pumps money into Hong Kong's democracy movement to provide a "continuous force to destabilize China," although he admits he has no evidence to substantiate this claim.
Lai calls the idea of a US-funded color revolution "ridiculous."
"If the US is funding this the evidence would be so self-evident," he says. 

"You can't find even one person to stand up and say, 'Hey, I got money from the US.'"
But he does view Washington as a key ally for Hong Kong -- as that early warning on the extradition bill proved. 

When Lai returned from that trip, he began raising the alarm. 

Journalists at first weren't too ruffled, he says.

"Lam was flying high before this extradition law," says Lai. 

"Xi Jinping was taking her hand (at public events), she was walking in front with him, she really wanted to do something great for her boss. She knew this was a great opportunity. And actually it was almost. Because people really didn't pay attention to it at first."
But the business community was more alarmed. 

"All of them have had to pay something to get the protection of the people that control them in mainland China," says Lai. 

More than that, they understood the law could be used by Chinese contacts as a tool for blackmail; if a Chinese partner wanted to control their Hong Kong counterpart they could potentially report them to the authorities across the border, where there is a 99% conviction rate.
Opposition to the bill slowly mounted, starting with a march of 12,000 people on March 31, led by Lam Wing-kee, a bookseller who was kidnapped from Hong Kong by mainland Chinese agents in 2015, after selling tomes critical of Beijing. 
Lam steamed ahead.
The marches continued: 160,000 people, then 1 million. 

Still the bill remained set to go through the city's top legislative body, Legco, in early June. 

Finally an estimated 2 million people took to the streets on June 16. 

The bill was suspended, but it was too late to quell the anger it had stirred.
Tien concedes it's unlikely that Washington engineered a 2-million-man march, but as demonstrators increasingly wave American flags in the protests -- something Lai says is just a publicity play to attract international TV cameras -- the pro-Beijing politician wants an independent inquiry into whether the CIA is funding a color revolution in the city.
A senior US administration official has denied that Washington is sponsoring or inciting the demonstrations, and President Donald Trump also appeared to reject the suggestion last week, when he tweeted that "many are blaming me, and the United States, for the problems going on in Hong Kong. I can't imagine why?"

Freedom over fortune
Founding Apple Daily, and taking on Hong Kong's fight for democracy, gave Lai "a meaning in life that I never had" as a textile tycoon. 

"The mission," he says, "it has such a wonderful meaning."
The city's other tycoons have avoided wading into the crisis. 

"If you're a business person in Hong Kong, it is difficult to avoid the China market," says Lam, the history professor. 

"And once you are in the China market your investment becomes a hostage, which the Chinese government is never shy of using as a means to exert influence."
The closest that Hong Kong's richest man Li Ka-shing, who is worth over $31 billion according to Forbes, has got to commenting on the political crisis was publishing two cryptic messages in the many of the city's newspapers this month (Apple Daily wasn't one of them). 

The cryptic nature of his advice to exercise caution was unmistakable -- across the city, readers speculated about whether he was addressing the protesters or Beijing, or both.
"No other tycoon is willing to" be so outspoken against China as Lai, says Clement So, the Chinese University of Hong Kong professor. 

"That's what has made Lai so unique."
That outspokenness doesn't come without dangers.
In 2015, Molotov cocktails were hurled at the headquarters of Next Media and Lai's home in the early hours of the morning. 

"We're not shocked. Unfortunately, violence has become a regular feature of Hong Kong now in the political discourse. That's just a simple fact," Mark Simon, Lai's assistant, told CNN at the time.
Today, Lai has a personal security detail at his home, but the self-confessed troublemaker says he has never forgotten what it was like to be poor, and he has no intent on abandoning the masses in the crusade they share with him for democracy.
"The young people see no future for themselves -- everything is expensive," says Lai. 

"Even to live in a small room is too expensive for them." 

The land of opportunity that entrepreneurs like Lai and Li Ka-shing thrived in when they arrived in Hong Kong has long disappeared.
"With this extradition law people thought, Okay, that's the last straw, we have to fight. We have to fight in front of this last frontier," he says.
That fight might not be good for the finances of Apple Daily.
The extent of Lai's personal wealth today is unknown, but he fell off the Forbes Hong Kong Rich List in 2009. 

Big corporations with interests in mainland China, such as Cathay Pacific or Li's CK Hutchison Holdings, never advertise in Apple Daily. 

Hong Kong's previous chief executive, CY Leung, who the publication has long antagonized for his close ties to Beijing, regularly posts pictures on his Facebook page of companies that advertize in Apple Daily. 

"Apple Daily is public enemy number 1 for CY Leung," says Lam, the history professor.
Operating in this political landscape, coupled with a general decline in print sales and advertising, has squeezed Apple Daily financially. 

The newspaper's circulation is now 200,000 a day, two-thirds of what it was a decade ago, with 1.5 million readers online. 

Its daily ad revenue has halved over the past three years. 

Next Digital has posted a net loss for the past three years.
Earlier this year, the newspaper introduced a pay wall of three Hong Kong dollars for access until September. 

Next month, the publication is hoping that people will pay 50 Hong Kong dollars a month to subscribe.
"The timing is good for Apple Daily because people want news," says Clement So, the media expert. "Lai would like to get financial support from online readers, if he can do it would throw him a lifeline. But if not successful, it is a real worry whether he cannot sustain his operation in the long run."
Meanwhile, bootstrapping online outlets, such as Stand News and HKC News, are growing competitors in the pro-democracy space. 

By shooting chat shows on smartphones and employing a small staff, they keep overheads low enough to avoid needing Beijing-tied advertisers.

2047 on the horizon
To many, the year 2047, when Hong Kong will likely return to full Chinese rule,once felt like a futuristic date. 

But now that it is just 28 years away, it's something Hong Kongers can imagine in their lifetime. 

The fight for democracy has become more urgent, more controversial -- but potentially less achievable, as China's economic rise gives Beijing more political power to resist democracy.
"I don't know where (the protests are) going to end," Lai says, "but one thing I know, with the world watching over us ... I think Trump, the US, cannot back off (from supporting Hong Kong) now. They can only go further and further. Not financially, but politically and morally."
Earlier this month, Pence said that chances of a trade deal with China would diminish if Hong Kong's laws were violated by Beijing, and criticized the country's human rights violations as antithetical to American ideals. 

Trump also tweeted that Chinese dictator Xi Jingping should meet with protesters.
If mounting international pressure coincides with an economic slowdown and job losses, China could change, speculates Lai. 

"That doesn't mean that the Communist Party will collapse," he adds. 

"But it might mean that Xi would have to step down and a more liberal government will take over and slowly we will be on the right way." 

But there is no sign of this happening anytime soon.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong's economy is taking a hit across the tourism, aviation and retail sectors from the disruption. 

Michael Tien, the pro-Beijing lawmaker, says that sales for his retail business were down 40% in August. 

"Nobody feels good anymore to come out and consume," he says. 

The Hong Kong government has announced a $2.4 billion stimulus package to help the economy grow amid the unrest.
For Lai, if the financial hub's economy has to suffer for freedom, so be it: The prospect of a struggle doesn't give people "an excuse not to fight."
"If we fight, we might have a miracle happen," he says. 

"If we don't fight, we have to submit to the tyranny. I just think that if we have been able to eliminate slavery we have the ability to eliminate tyranny, too. That's hopeful."

Hong Kong protesters throw Chinese flag into iconic harbor

By YANAN WANG

A protester lowers a Chinese flag from a flagpole during a demonstration in Hong Kong, Saturday, Aug. 3, 2019. Hong Kong protesters ignored police warnings and streamed past the designated endpoint for a rally Saturday in the latest of a series of demonstrations targeting the government of the semi-autonomous Chinese territory.

HONG KONG — Hong Kong protesters removed a Chinese national flag from its pole and flung it into the city’s iconic Victoria Harbour on Saturday after a pro-democracy rally once again continued into the evening despite police warnings to stick to a short, pre-approved route.
Tens of thousands of black-clad protesters filled a major road in a usually bustling market district where shop owners had shuttered their storefronts in anticipation of a prolonged demonstration. 

They also blocked a tunnel and surrounded police stations where non-emergency services were suspended.
The protest was the latest in a summer-long pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, a semi-autonomous Chinese territory. 

While the rallies have been largely peaceful, they have increasingly devolved into skirmishes with police after some protesters refused to disperse at assigned times.

Pro-democracy demonstrators began setting up first aid stations and handing out helmets a few hours into their rally. 

When one group reached the harbor near a luxury shopping center and high-end hotels, some protesters climbed up a cluster of flag poles and removed the Chinese national flag.
After some debate over whether to paint the flag black, they decided to throw it into the water before the police could intervene.
Shortly afterward, a 38-year-old protester named Paladin Cheng planted himself beside the poles with his own set of flags, which read “Hong Kong Independence.”
“We’re losing our freedom little by little,” said Cheng, who was clad in head-to-toe black with a black visor and face mask. 

“Those who don’t support Hong Kong independence will have no choice but to become Chinese.”
A former British colony, Hong Kong was returned to China in 1997 under the framework of “one country, two systems,” which promises the city certain freedoms not afforded to mainland residents. In recent years, however, Hong Kong residents have accused Beijing of chipping away at their autonomy through the arrests of booksellers and activists.
Such sentiments have propelled the current mass demonstrations, which were initially triggered by a proposed extradition law that would have allowed Hong Kong residents to be sent to mainland China to stand trial.
While the government has since suspended the legislation, protesters have pressed on with five major demands, including direct elections and an investigation into police brutality. 

Hong Kong’s leader is chosen by a pro-Beijing committee.
Police warned earlier Saturday that those who continued past the pre-approved route would be breaking the law. 

They called on protesters to stick to designated routes and times after violent clashes marred previous rallies in the summer-long protest movement. 

Any demonstrations that are not pre-approved will be “cleared out” as unlawful assemblies, police said.
Zarine Chau, a 56-year-old security guard, said she rarely used to get involved in politics, but was angered after she saw videos of police officers beating up protesters.
“I feel so hurt,” Chau said. 

“Why doesn’t the government answer to us?” 

She attended Saturday’s rally with her 5-month-old Chihuahua, who was there to help protesters relax, Chau said.
A 44-year-old nonprofit worker surnamed Wai said he was worried about protesters’ safety because violent incidents have often occurred after marches draw to a close.
“Some things have gone too far,” Wai said. 

“Hong Kong’s future belongs to all of us. We need to keep it safe.”
Hong Kong residents have accused police of negligence after 44 people were injured last month in a mob attack by white-clad assailants who targeted protesters. 

Authorities said their resources were stretched due to the prolonged demonstrations.
Mong Kok, the site of Saturday’s pro-democracy protest, was one area where protesters set up a pro-democracy demonstration zone in 2014. 

Near the end of the Occupy Central protests, police officers descended on the site and tore down the metal barricades, bamboo and wooden planks protesters had used to block off key streets.

Xi Jinping misjudges depth of Hong Kong's fury

Residents say a resounding no to Beijing's tightening grip on the city
By TETSUSHI TAKAHASHI
Protesters demand that Hong Kong leaders withdraw the extradition bill at a demonstration on June 16.

BEIJING -- When Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping set forth a "one country, two systems" principle to govern Hong Kong starting with its July 1997 handover from the U.K., guaranteeing a high level of autonomy and freedom of expression for 50 years, people worried what would happen in 2047.
Instead, they now face that reality nearly 30 years ahead of schedule under a Chinese leader who seems to put more weight on "one country" than "two systems."
Among the signs hoisted during Sunday's mass protests in Hong Kong opposing the extradition bill were ones that said "Hong Kong is not China," and "We are not Chinese."
They represented a clear "no" from the people of Hong Kong to the seeming "Chinafication" of the territory that the regime of Xi Jinping has pursued.
Deng Xiaoping saw the city as a steppingstone to opening up the mainland economy. 

But Xi, who became leader of the Communist Party in 2012, has a different approach.
Xi refused to compromise during the Umbrella Movement of 2014, when students and other protesters demanded fully democratic elections for the city's chief executive. 

Several pro-democracy legislators elected to the Legislative Council in 2016 were also disqualified from serving. 

The message was clear: Beijing would brook no dissent from Hong Kong.
Freedom of expression appears under threat as well. 

In 2015, several Hong Kong residents were abducted and detained by Chinese authorities for selling books critical of the Communist Party. 

What many had feared about Chinese control is already coming true just two decades after the handover.
"Any attempt to endanger China's sovereignty and security, challenge the power of the central government and the authority of the Basic Law" -- Hong Kong's equivalent of a constitution -- "or use Hong Kong to carry out infiltration and sabotage activities against the mainland is an act that crosses the red line, and is absolutely impermissible," Xi said in July 2017 at a ceremony commemorating the 20th anniversary of the handover.
He called for stepping up "patriotic education" of young people, making clear an intention to integrate Hong Kong into the mainland.
Xi appeared confident that the mainland had solidified its grip on the city. 

Recent economic statistics would give him reason to think so.
Shanghai and Shenzhen have overtaken Hong Kong in gross domestic product since the handover. Hong Kong is now less than 3% of China's GDP, down from 18% back then. 

Xi also knew he could not give the city special treatment forever amid tightening controls on the mainland.
But he has underestimated locals' distrust in the mainland's one-party rule.
Beijing backed Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam when she announced Saturday that the extradition bill would be delayed indefinitely. 

For Xi, this marked an unprecedented compromise in the city, and he likely hoped that it would calm things down.
Yet a quarter of the city's residents again turned out Sunday to demand that the bill be scrapped altogether. 

Even those who had distanced themselves from politics after the Umbrella Movement failed joined in this time, worried that they would face the repercussions as well.
The political turmoil shows no signs of letting up. 

Years of discontent over Beijing's hard-line tactics in the city are reaching a boiling point.
The roots of the city's frustrations go much further than the controversial extradition bill, as Beijing has gradually chipped away at the autonomy promised to residents.
Now U.S. President Donald Trump looks ready to discuss the latest protests at the Group of 20 summit at the end of June in Osaka. 

This would be unacceptable to Xi, who considers the goings-on in the city a domestic Chinese issue. Hong Kong represents one of Beijing's "core" national interests. 

Mishandling it could undermine the foundation of the Xi administration.
Hong Kongers have already won the international community over. 

And independence-minded Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen is gaining momentum in her reelection campaign ahead of the January vote.
They are all troubles of Beijing's own making.

Joshua Wong walks free, calls on Carrie Lam to resign

AFP

Wong was sent to prison in May after he lost an attempt to quash a jail sentence over the huge democracy protests he helped lead in 2014.

Hong Kong -- Hong Kong democracy activist Joshua Wong called on the city's pro-Beijing leader Carrie Lam to resign after he walked free from prison on Monday, as historic anti-government protests rocked the city.
"She is no longer qualified to be Hong Kong's leader," Wong told reporters. 

"She must take the blame and resign, be held accountable and step down."
Wong was sent to prison in May after he lost an attempt to quash a jail sentence over the huge democracy protests he helped lead in 2014.
His release comes as Hong Kong is rocked by historic anti-government protests. 

They were initially sparked by mass public opposition to a plan to allow extraditions to China.
But the movement has since morphed into the latest expression of public rage against both the city's leaders and Beijing.
Speaking to the media outside Lai Chi Kok Correctional Institute, 22-year-old Wong called on protesters to continue their protests and civil disobedience campaign.
"We demand Carrie Lam to step down, completely withdraw the extradition law, and retract the 'riot' label," he said, referring to Lam's previous term to describe protesters earlier in the week.
He also condemned authorities for firing tear gas and rubber bullets during violent clashes between protesters and police on Wednesday.
"When I was in jail, I saw Carrie Lam crying on the live television broadcast. All I can say is, when she shed tears, Hong Kong citizens were shedding blood in Admiralty," he said, referring to the district where the clashes took place.

China extradition bill debate postponed as protesters swarm Hong Kong streets

By Julia Hollingsworth

Hong Kong -- Hong Kong lawmakers have postponed a debate over a controversial bill that would allow fugitives to be extradited to China after protesters blocked roads and restricted access to government buildings.
The city's legislative council was due to hold the second reading of the bill on Wednesday morning local time. 

The bill has been met with widespread opposition, including from the city's traditionally conservative business community, and prompted more than 1 million of the city's 7.4 million population to take to the streets in protest on Sunday.
In a statement on its website, Legislative Council President Andrew Leung Kwan-yuen said Wednesday's meeting would be "changed to a later time to be determined by him."

The decision to postpone the debate came as tens of thousands of protesters once again took to the streets of central Hong Kong in scenes reminiscent of the 2014 democracy demonstrations known as the Umbrella Movement.
Protesters began arriving outside the Legislative Council buildings on Tuesday night, where they were greeted by a heavy police presence and bag searches. 

By Wednesday morning, tens of thousands of mainly young people had arrived in the area, blocking streets and bringing central Hong Kong to a standstill.

Protesters assemble near Hong Kong's Legislative Council on June 12, 2019. 

Up to 5,000 police in riot gear have been deployed to guard the building. 

On Wednesday morning, police fired a water canon on a protester and used pepper spray on others. Protesters were seen wearing helmets, goggles and heavy-duty workman's gloves, and pulling bricks from the sidewalks.
Hundreds of businesses, parents and teachers called for a boycott of works and school on Wednesday to show their opposition to the bill.

Police officers use a water canon on a lone protester near the government headquarters in Hong Kong on June 12, 2019.

Although Hong Kong is part of China, it has separate laws that follow the UK system and no capital punishment, unlike mainland China. 

The proposed extradition law means people could be taken from Hong Kong by Chinese authorities for political or inadvertent business offenses.

Hong Kong people are furious
Wednesday's protests come only three days after a mostly peaceful march in central Hong Kong. Organizers estimated 1.03 million people attended on Sunday, the figure would make it the city's largest protest since the former British colony was handed back to China in 1997.

Protesters rally against the proposed extradition bill on June 12, 2019. 

Despite the mass demonstrations, Hong Kong's leader Carrie Lam has refused to withdraw the extradition bill, saying it is needed to plug loopholes to prevent the city from becoming a haven for mainland fugitives.
On Monday, she said safeguards had been added to the bill to protect human rights and had received no instruction from Beijing to push it forward. 

Hong Kong's lawmakers had planned to dedicate 66 hours across five days to debating the bill.
"Hong Kong people are furious," senior Democratic Party lawmaker James To said Tuesday. 

"Our chief executive just ignored the people's voice, despite the peaceful rally of a million Hong Kong people."

Protesters swarm the streets in another show of strength against the government on June 12, 2019. 

Sunny Chan, an 18-year-old protestor on the streets Wednesday, said she was "angry" that the government failed to pay attention to Sunday's protests. 

"We choose to come out today and stand in the front and protest and try to protect my freedom," she said.
Protestor Marco Leung, 23, said there would be no difference between Hong Kong and China if the law was passed. 

"We are not China," Leung said. 

"Police should protect the citizens, not the government."

Free Tibet

Tibetan Youth Self-Immolates Over China's Tibet Policies
By Tinley Nyandak
Drugkho, a Tibetan youth seen in these undated photos, set himself on fire to protest China’s repressive policy in Tibet near the Ngaba District’s security office, Sichuan Province, Dec. 8, 2018.

A young Tibetan man set himself on fire outside a district security office in China's Sichuan province earlier this month, chanting, "Long Live His Holiness the Dalai Lama! Free Tibet!"
Tibetan sources say the man, Drugkho, is about 22 years old, and is believed to still be alive, but his whereabouts and his condition remain unclear.

He is the latest Tibetan to attempt to self-immolate over repressive Chinese policies in Tibet. 

Local sources said the incident occurred last Saturday near the Ngaba District security office, but details were scarce.
Whenever there is a self-immolation protest, China typically beefs up its security to try to prevent the news from spreading.
"There has been an immediate lockdown in the area, with internet communications blocked. A Tibetan youth self-immolated on December 8 in the afternoon in Ngaba county, and it is true that it happened, but after the incident any discussion of this is very inconvenient," RFA Tibetan service and The Tibet Post International reported, quoting sources in Tibet.
Dharamsala-based Kirti Monastery's spokesman Lobsang Yeshi says no further details were known because of strict restrictions on information flow in the area and dangers to the Tibetans speaking to the outside world.
The protester was a former monk at Kirti Monastery. 

He was formerly known as Chokyi Gyaltsen, but after he disrobed in 2017, he took the name of Drugkho, according to Tibetan sources.
Ngaba's main town and nearby Kirti Monastery have been the scene of repeated self-immolations and other protests in recent years by monks, former monks, and other Tibetans calling for Tibetan freedom and the Dalai Lama's return to Tibet. 

Drugkho's self-immolation protest is the 42nd such confirmed incident in Ngaba.
Drugkho's protest brings the total number of self-immolations to roughly 155 in Tibet since February 2009. 

The majority of those self-immolators have died.

VIETNAMESE SEE SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONES AS ASSAULT FROM CHINA

The South China Sea dispute, along with memories of the 1979 border war, run deep in the Vietnamese national psyche, making SEZs viscerally unpopular

BY BENNETT MURRAY

The Vietnamese government is confronting a rising tide of public anger as its parliament debates a controversial bill to create three new special economic zones (SEZs), raising fears of Chinese encroachment on Vietnamese soil.
Although Vietnam already has 18 SEZs, the new concerns largely stem from a provision that would allow 99-year leases in some cases within the three new zones in Quang Ninh and Khanh Hoa provinces, as well as on Phu Quoc Island. 

The bill does not explicitly mention any particular country but it is widely presumed China, Vietnam’s largest trading partner, would dominate investments in the SEZs.
Attempting to allay concerns, Prime Minister Nguyen Xhan Phuc announced on Thursday the government would adjust the 99-year time frame but did not elaborate.
“In recent days, we have listened to a lot of intellectuals, the people, members of the National Assembly, senior citizens and overseas Vietnamese,” Phuc said.
Activists stage a rally marking the 42nd anniversary of the 1974 naval battle between China and then-South Vietnamese troops over the Paracel Islands, in front of the statue of Vietnamese King Ly Thai Tô in Hanoi. 

Nguyen Chi Tuyen, a Hanoi-based dissident blogger with 42,500 Facebook followers, said he rarely saw such public interest in the National Assembly, a legislature that usually acts as a rubber stamp for the Communist Party’s Central Committee.
“This time they’ve got a lot of attention from the people, not just activists or dissidents but the normal people,” he said, adding that anti-China sentiment has fuelled anger.
He was unimpressed by Phuc’s pledge to adjust the 99-year lease provision.
“It’s not how long, but this is one kind of selling our land to foreigners under the so-called SEZs,” Tuyen said.
With popular Vietnamese anger towards China simmering over Beijing’s maritime claims in the South China Sea, Le Dang Doanh, a retired senior economic adviser to the government and member of the Communist Party, said he fears an explosive response from the public should the bill pass. 

That the proposed SEZ in Quang Ninh province is not far from China’s Guangxi autonomous region is of particular concern, he added.
Vietnamese security officers move a sign advising people not to take photographs near the Chinese embassy in Hanoi after authorities forcibly broke up small protests against China in May 2014. 
“If now the Chinese occupy the three special economic zones, especially the one in Quang Ninh, it will trigger a very strong reaction from the Vietnamese people,” said Doanh, adding that he had signed a petition asking to postpone passage of the law.
Tuyen said the South China Sea dispute, along with memories of the 1979 border war, run deep in the national psyche, making SEZs viscerally unpopular.
“We have a long history with the Chinese people, they always want to invade our country, so it is dangerous to allow them to use these SEZs to control our country,” he said.
In recent years, the maritime dispute has prompted rare public protests in the one-party communist state. 

Demonstrations turned violent in 2014 following China’s deployment of the Hai Yang Shi You 981 oil rig in the South China Sea, with at least 21 killed and 100 injured in clashes targeting Chinese-owned factories, although many were owned by firms from other countries. 

The government has since cracked down on anti-China protests.
Nguyen Quang A, a retired banker and prominent pro-democracy activist, said the government must guard against suspicions it has become too cosy with fellow communists to the north.
“There are a few issues which are very dangerous for the legitimacy of the Communist Party in Vietnam, and that is one,” said Quang A, himself a former party member.

Chinese Peril

China’s control over economic zones leads to more protests in Vietnam

Protesters held signs that said “No leasing land to Chinese communists for even one day” and “Cybersecurity law kills freedom”.
AP

Vietnamese police have arrested eight more people after protests a week ago over a proposed law on special economic zones that protesters fear would fall into the hands of Chinese investors.

The men from the south central province of Binh Thuan were accused of disturbing public order, opposing officials and damaging state property, the state-run Tuoi Tre newspaper reported.
Protests against the law took place across the country, including in the southern commercial hub of Saigon where seven people were arrested for allegedly disturbing security and opposing officials.
Protesters fear the three proposed special economic zones, where land could be rented for up to 99 years, would be dominated by investors from China.
Lawmakers have postponed the passage of the law until October.
Security on Sunday was tight in many cities and provinces in Vietnam, with a large presence of police in public areas. 

But in central Ha Tinh province, live-stream footage on Facebook showed thousands of people attending a Sunday mass protesting peacefully against the laws.
Protesters held signs that said “No leasing land to Chinese communists for even one day” and “Cybersecurity law kills freedom”.

Witnesses said there were no clashes with police during the two-hour protest.
The Vietnamese government has vowed to punish “extremists” it said had instigated rare clashes with police in Binh Thuan province. 

Protesters hurled bricks and Molotov cocktails at police, damaging some government buildings.
Charge d’affaires of the Chinese embassy in Vietnam, Yin Haihong, said on Friday that the cause of this incident was internal affairs in Vietnam and there was no connection with China.
“However, the incident still has a negative impact on Sino-Vietnamese relations;” Yin said in an embassy statement.

Axis of Evil

Vietnam detains 100 after anti-China economic zone protests turn violent
BBC News
Protests turned violent in Binh Thuan province -- where more than 100 people were detained
Scores of people have been detained by Vietnamese police amid protests against plans for special economic zones (SEZs) that many fear will be dominated by Chinese investors.
Molotov cocktails and rocks were lobbed at the People's Committee Headquarters in south-eastern Binh Thuan province, where police said 102 people were held.
The proposed law would give foreign investors 99-year leases on SEZ land.
MPs had been set to vote on it this week but this has been delayed.
The decision to postpone the vote in an attempt to defuse the protests was seen as a major concession by the ruling communist party in response to large-scale street demonstrations.
The chairwoman of parliament, Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, said that people's opinions "will always be heard".
China's embassy in Hanoi has warned its citizens to be careful, referring to the protests as "illegal gatherings" that had included some "anti-China content".
Demonstrators had gathered in various parts of the country over the weekend, including the major urban centres of Hanoi, the capital, and Saigon.
Some carried anti-China banners, including one reading: "No leasing land to China even for one day."
Protests in the cities were quickly suppressed, but authorities faced much greater public anger in Binh Thuan, where demonstrators threw rocks, set vehicles alight, and briefly occupied the local government headquarters. 

State media outlets said dozens of police officers were injured.
On Monday, police formed barricades with their shields across roads into the town, and numerous explosions could be heard, as tear gas was fired into the crowd.
At a fire station attacked by protesters, riot police have laid down their shields and equipment and withdrawn in an apparent peace gesture.

Protests are a rare sight in Vietnam

Why are the economic zones controversial?
The bill offers companies operating in the SEZs greater incentives and fewer restrictions, in an attempt to promote growth in target areas.
But protesters suspect that the communist government will award Chinese investors leases in the three economic zones in the north-east, south-east and south-west of the country, and that this would be a pretext for Chinese control over Vietnamese land.
In Binh Thuan, anti-Chinese sentiment combined with simmering anger over industrial pollution and land disputes, to ignite a flammable cocktail of local grievances, says BBC South East Asia correspondent Jonathan Head.
Demonstrators are also objecting to a cyber security bill, scheduled for a vote on 12 June. 

Human Rights Watch says it would give the government broad powers to quash dissent online.

Why the anger towards China?
China once colonised Vietnam, the two countries fought a border war less than 40 years ago, and Vietnam contests Chinese control of a number of islands in the South China Sea.
As a result, Vietnam's leaders must always tread a delicate line between maintaining relations with their powerful neighbour, and avoiding provoking anti-Chinese sentiment in a fiercely nationalist population.
Roughly $5 trillion worth of global trade passes through the South China Sea annually, and a number of countries claim disputed islands there.
Vietnam has seen protests over the maritime disputes in recent years, including in 2014, when Chinese citizens fled the country in their thousands after violence targeting foreign-owned businesses.

Protesters bring China issue to the fore
By Giang Nguyen

This is the biggest challenge for Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc since his government was sworn in more than two years ago with a pledge to stamp out corruption and revitalise the economy.
The three special economic zones are meant to be "mini Singapores" - business-friendly environments complete with high-tech hubs.
But Phuc appears to have underestimated deep-seated resentments against China, and the speed at which protesters can utilise social media to organise street marches in cities including Hanoi and Saigon.Protesters like those who marched in Saigon have said they will demonstrate again
While some are fearful of the Chinese influence in Vietnam under the economic zone proposals, others are concerned about plans for a new cyber security bill. 

The latter has angered Facebook users in particular, who fear the authorities will be given too much power, while online surveillance could become the norm.
Critics said the government had lost touch with reality as it tried to push two controversial laws through a parliament where many MPs are openly against both.
Those against the SEZ law include three advisers to the PM.

Hong Kong democracy campaigners jailed over anti-China protests

Alex Chow, Nathan Law, and Joshua Wong given six to eight month sentences for roles in anti-government occupation known as the umbrella movement
By Tom Phillips in Beijing

Joshua Wong (L) and Alex Chow, leaders of Hong Kong’s ‘Umbrella Movement’, before their court appearance.

Hong Kong’s democracy movement has suffered the latest setback in what has been a punishing year after three of its most influential young leaders were jailed for their roles in a protest at the start of a 79-day anti-government occupation known as the umbrella movement.
Alex Chow, Nathan Law, and Joshua Wong, the bespectacled student dubbed Hong Kong’s “face of protest” were sentenced to between six and eight months imprisonment each.
The trio, aged 26, 24 and 20 respectively, had avoided jail a year ago after being convicted of taking part in or inciting an “illegal assembly” that helped spark the umbrella protests, in late September 2014. 

But this month Hong Kong’s department of justice called for those sentences to be reconsidered, with one senior prosecutor attacking the “rather dangerous” leniency he claimed had been shown to the activists.
“See you soon,” Wong tweeted shortly after the verdict was announced.
In another message he wrote: “Imprisoning us will not extinguish Hongkonger’s desire for universal suffrage. We are stronger, more determined, and we will win.”
“You can lock up our bodies, but not our minds! We want democracy in Hong Kong. And we will not give up.”
The decision to increase the activists’ punishments sparked outrage among supporters and campaigners who condemned what they called the latest example of Beijing’s bid to snuff out peaceful challenges to its rule.
“It smacks of political imprisonment, plain and simple,” said Jason Ng, the author of Umbrellas in Bloom, a book about Hong Kong’s youth protest movement.
Mabel Au, Amnesty International’s director in Hong Kong, said: “The relentless and vindictive pursuit of student leaders using vague charges smacks of political payback by the authorities.”
There was also criticism from the United States where Republican senator Marco Rubio attacked the decision as “shameful and further evidence that Hong Kong’s cherished autonomy is precipitously eroding”.
“Joshua Wong, Nathan Law, Alex Chow and other umbrella movement protesters are pro-democracy champions worthy of admiration, not criminals deserving jail time,” said Rubio, who heads the congressional-executive commission on China.

“Beijing’s heavy hand is on display for all to see as they attempt to crush the next generation of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement,” he added.
Speaking before the verdict, Wong told the Guardian he was sure he would be jailed since the decision to seek stiffer punishments was driven by politics, not legal arguments. 

“It’s a political prosecution,” he said. 

“It is the darkest era for Hong Kong because we are the first generation of umbrella movement leaders being sent to prison.”
Wong claimed the decision to use the courts to crack down on umbrella activists showed China’s one-party rulers had managed to transform the former British colony, once a rule-of-law society, into a place of “authoritarian rule by law”.
“No one would like to go to prison but I have to use this as a chance to show the commitment of Hong Kong’s young activists,” he said. 

“It is really a cold winter for Hong Kong’s democracy movement – but things that cannot defeat us will make us stronger.”
Thursday’s controversial ruling caps a torrid year for the pro-democracy camp of this semi-autonomous Chinese city, which returned to Beijing’s control on 1 July 1997 after 156 years of colonial rule.
During a June visit marking the 20th anniversary of handover, Xi Jinping oversaw a tub-thumping military parade which observers said underscored the increasingly hardline posture Beijing was now taking towards Hong Kong amid an upsurge in support for independence. 

“The implication is: ‘We will come out in the streets and put you down if we have to,’” the political blogger Suzanne Pepper said at the time.
A fortnight later, the democracy movement suffered a body blow when four pro-democracy lawmakers, including Law, were ejected from Hong Kong’s parliament for using their oath-taking ceremonies to thumb their noses at Beijing. 

That decision robbed the pro-democracy camp of its veto power over major legislation.
In an interview with the Guardian, Law, who had been the youngest person elected to Hong Kong’s legislature, said the disqualifications were an attempt by Beijing to “suppress the more progressive voices in Hong Kong”.
“I won’t give up fighting. If Liu Xiaobo can persist under much harsher circumstances, so can we,” Law vowed, referring to the late democracy icon who died in Chinese custody last month, becoming the first Nobel peace prize winner to perish in custody since German pacifist Carl von Ossietzky, who died in 1938 after years in Nazi concentration camps.
On Tuesday, 13 umbrella activists were jailed for storming Hong Kong’s parliament in 2014, a decision Human Rights Watch condemned as part of a surge in politically motivated prosecutions.
Ng, the author, said he believed the decision to jail Wong and Law was deliberately designed to stop them running for office later this year in local byelections. 

Their imprisonment was not intended to deter violence or social disorder but to crack down on “the willingness of young, idealistic people to engage politically”.
“[These sentences] significantly increase the cost of dissent in Hong Kong,” Ng warned. 

“From now on, protesters will need to think about the possibility of getting locked up for months or even years.
“It has an enormous chilling effect … especially on young people, and sends a strong message to them that they should shut up or else.”
Speaking on Wednesday night, Wong said he would not be silenced, even behind bars where he planned to spend his time reading novels, studying and writing columns about politics.
Wong also used his final hours of freedom to send a message to Xi: “Please respect the desires of Hong Kong people. The people are united and they will never stop.”

Hong Kong democracy activists charged day after new city leader selected

Nine activists to be prosecuted for street protests two years ago despite new chief executive Carrie Lam pledging her selection would reunite population
By Benjamin Haas In Hong Kong

Hong Kong police have started a crackdown on pro-democracy lawmakers and activists, informing at least nine people they will be charged for their involvement in a series of street protests more than two years ago.
The charges come a day after the Carrie Lam was selected to be the city’s chief executive. 

She was heavily backed by the Chinese government and promised to heal divisions in an increasingly polarised political climate where pro-Beijing elites and businesses have repeatedly clashed with grassroots movements calling for more democracy.
For nearly three months in 2014, protesters surrounded the main government offices and blocked roads in the heart of Hong Kong’s financial district. 

While several high-profile cases were brought in the months after, the vast majority of protesters were not charged.
But on Monday the government announced it would prosecute two lawmakers, Tanya Chan and Shiu Ka-chun. 

The others are former student protest leaders Eason Chung and Tommy Cheung, as well as the founders of the Occupy Central movement, Benny Tai, Reverend Chu Yiu-ming and Chan Kin-man. 

Activist Raphael Wong and former legislator Lee Wing-tat will also be charged.
“This isn’t just my case being prosecuted, it’s prosecution against Hong Kong’s democracy,” Chan said in an interview. 

“Lam said her first job would be to reunite Hong Kong people and this will make that task much more difficult.”
Some of the nine planned to turn themselves in at police headquarters late on Monday, with activists rallying around them in support.
Current chief executive Leung Chun-ying has taken unprecedented steps in recent months to remove pro-democracy lawmakers from office. 

Two were barred from taking their seats last year, and the government has launched legal challenges against four other legislators.
If Chan or Shiu are jailed for more than a month, they could lose their seats in the legislative council. The two will be charged with creating a public nuisance, which carries a maximum penalty of seven years imprisonment.
“Leung is trying to change the result of the legislative election through the courts,” Chan said.

“This is a well planned and well designed action, the timing is very critical.”
Lam said she did not know about the arrests in advance.
“I made it very clear that I want to unite society and bridge the divide that has been causing us concern,” Lam said at a press conference. 

“But all these actions should not compromise the rule of law in Hong Kong.”
The protests that led to the charges were sparked by the Chinese government’s decision to vet candidates for the chief executive. 

Beijing’s reform package was voted down, and only 1,194 or 0.03% of registered voters could cast a ballot in Sunday’s election.
Lam met with student leaders of the pro-democracy protests in 2014, and ended up taking a hard line against concessions on the political reform offered by Beijing.
It is unclear why the government waited more than two years to prosecute the protesters and the police did not responded to multiple requests seeking comment.

Rogue Nation

China to Select New Hong Kong Leader Amid Anger at China Meddling
By James Pomfret

People attend an election campaign by candidate John Tsang, former Financial Secretary, at the financial Central district, two days before the Chief Executive election, in Hong Kong, China March 24, 2017. 

HONG KONG -- A small electoral college chooses a new Hong Kong leader on Sunday amid accusations of meddling by Beijing, denying the Chinese-ruled financial hub a more populist leader perhaps better suited to defuse political tension.
The vast majority of the city's 7.3 million people have no say in their next leader, with the winner to be chosen by a 1,200-person "election committee" stacked with pro-Beijing and pro-establishment loyalists.
Three candidates are running for the top post, two former officials, Carrie Lam and John Tsang, and a retired judge, Woo Kwok-hing. 

Lam is considered the favorite.
"I hope we all remember on 24 March 2017, we Hong Kong people have all come together and given our most sincere blessings for a more united, a better Hong Kong," Tsang told a rally of thousands of cheering supporters on Friday night.
Mass protests are planned over the weekend denouncing Beijing's "interference" in the election amid widespread reports of lobbying of the 1,200 voters to back Lam, rather than the more populist and conciliatory former finance chief, Tsang.
Since Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997, Beijing has gradually increased control over the territory even though Beijing promised wide-ranging freedoms and autonomy under the formula of "one country, two systems", along with an undated promise of universal suffrage.
Many fear that Lam will continue the tough policies of staunchly pro-Beijing incumbent Leung Chun-ying, a divisive figure who ordered the firing of tear gas on pro-democracy protesters in 2014 and who wasn't seen to be defending Hong Kong's autonomy and core values.
The political upheavals with Beijing over the city's autonomy and democratic reforms -- that many hoped would have allowed a direct election this time round -- have roiled a new generation and weighed on the city's economy, ranked 33rd globally by the World Bank in 2015.
Political and social divisions, mainly over democracy and anxieties over China's creeping influence, have dominated political debate leading to some legislative and policy-making paralysis and the stalling of major projects, including a cultural hub and high-speed rail link to China.
Businesses have also faced growing competition from mainland Chinese firms in core sectors like services and property. 

Housing prices, now among the world's highest, are widely seen to have been jacked up by an unrelenting wave of buying from rich Chinese, intensifying anti-China sentiment.
Many observers, leading businessmen and politicians have warned Hong Kong can't afford another period of upheaval if the city is to regain its former capitalist mojo.
Beijing's shadowy detention of five Hong Kong booksellers in late 2015, and the disappearance of a Chinese billionaire this year, have also undermined confidence in "one country, two systems" formula.
While Beijing hasn't explicitly backed any candidate, senior officials have stressed certain conditions must be met including a new leader having the "trust" of China's Communist leaders.
"Just because a candidate is leading popularity polls doesn't necessarily mean you should vote for (that person)," said Leung Chun-ying on Friday.
Nearly 2,000 police will be stationed around the harbourfront voting center in case of any unrest.

Free Tibet

24-Year-old Tibetan Self-Immolates in Anti-China Protest
VOA News

Map of self-immolations in Tibet, or near Tibet
Monitors say a 24-year-old Tibetan man set himself on fire Saturday outside a monastery in China's southwestern Sichuan province, a region heavily populated by ethnic Tibetans who protest China's policies in their nearby homeland.
A statement Sunday from the organization "Free Tibet" said the man self-immolated Saturday afternoon, drawing a large detachment of police and security personnel who took him into custody.
Witnesses are quoted as saying Pema Gyaltsen was thought to be alive when arrested. 

But the statement said activists have been unable to confirm his current condition or whether he survived the ordeal.
The statement also said police remained in the area to prevent the spread of information, and that Internet service in the region was cut.
Analysts say Saturday's self-immolation is the first in the disputed region since December, when another male set himself on fire and died.
Free Tibet says more than 140 Tibetan protesters have set themselves on fire since 2009, when anti-China protesters -- most of them monks and nuns -- began self-immolating to protest what locals describe as Chinese interference in Tibetan customs and religious practices.
The majority of those protesters have died.
Protesters also have sought to bring attention to demands for the return of their exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
Chinese authorities last decade criminalized self-immolation protests, and local courts have imprisoned scores of people for their alleged roles in supporting the protests.

Anti-China Protesters in Hanoi Mark Border War Anniversary

By Marianne Brown

Protesters lay wreaths at a pagoda on Hoan Kiem lake, Vietnam.

HANOI — Around 100 people marched through the center of Hanoi Sunday to commemorate the 35th anniversary of a brief but bloody border war with China.
Anti-China protesters marched around a lake in the center of Hanoi Sunday morning to commemorate 35 years since Chinese troops embarked on a near month-long invasion of northern Vietnam. 

Participants carried flowers and wore headbands that said “the people will never forget.”
Chinese troops moved in on February 17, 1979, shortly after Vietnam invaded Cambodia, which was at the time led by Chinese-ally the Khmer Rouge. 

Around 21,000 people are believed to have died on both sides, although neither government has released official figures.
The war is still a very sensitive subject in Vietnam because of the delicate diplomatic relationship with China. 

Student Kim Bich Ngoc, 20 years old, said her teachers warned her she would be kicked out of university if she attended anti-China protests.
" I never learned about it at school...The government don’t want Vietnamese people to know about that because they are afraid it will affect the relationship between Vietnam and China," said Ngoc.
The protesters had originally intended to lay the flowers at the statue of national icon Ly Thai To, but the area around the statue was packed with members of aerobics and ballroom dance clubs.
Many protesters said they believed the government had arranged the activities so they could not gather there.
Among the crowd was Nguyen Tri Dung, the son of political blogger Nguyen Van Hai, who wrote under the pen name Dieu Cay.
Nguyen Van Hai took part in protests as early as 2008 against Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea, which overlap with Vietnam’s own claims. 

He is serving a 12-year prison sentence for conducting propaganda against the state.
Dung says he believes the Vietnamese government does not want people to learn about the border war with China.
"I had to find for myself the real history (about the war) on the Internet," he said. 

"I came here today to acknowledge the real history. I didn’t learn anything at school about it. I didn’t even know there was a war between the Vietnamese and Chinese at that time."
While the Vietnamese government does at times protest Chinese actions in areas of the South China Sea, which it also claims, coverage of the two countries diplomatic relations is strictly controlled in the Vietnamese media.
China is one of Vietnam’s largest trading partners. 

Dung says he believes this is why the government does not want young people to know about the war.
"I think it’s because the Vietnamese are afraid to tell the truth, to let the young people know... the government depends a lot on China," he said.
Similar rallies have often been broken up by police with tens of participants detained. 

Despite being closely followed by uniformed and plain-clothed police, the protesters were eventually allowed to lay flowers at a pagoda and go home.

China's 'Silk Road' push stirs resentment and protest in Sri Lanka

By Shihar Aneez | HAMBANTOTA, SRI LANKA

Demonstrators react during a clash with police during a protest against the launching of a Chinese industrial zone by China Merchants Port Holdings Company, in Mirijjawila, Sri Lanka January 7, 2017. 

Demonstrators shout at police officers at a protest against the launching of a Chinese industrial zone by China Merchants Port Holdings Company, in Mirijjawila, Sri Lanka January 7, 2017. 

Police clash with demonstrators during a protest against the launching of a Chinese industrial zone by China Merchants Port Holdings Company, in Mirijjawila, Sri Lanka January 7, 2017. 

China signed a deal with Sri Lanka late last year to further develop the strategic port of Hambantota and build a huge industrial zone nearby, a key part of Beijing's ambitions to create a modern-day "Silk Road" across Asia.
The agreement was welcome relief for the island nation of 20 million people. 

As they try to reduce the country's debts, officials in Colombo see China's plans to include Sri Lanka on its "One Belt, One Road" initiative as an economic lifeline.
China has spent almost $2 billion so far on Hambantota and a new airport and wants to spend much more.
But Beijing now faces a new and unpredictable challenge to its presence in Sri Lanka and broader Silk Road project.
Hundreds of Sri Lankans clashed with police at the opening last month of the industrial zone in the south, saying they would not be moved from their land. 

It was the first time opposition to Chinese investments in Sri Lanka turned violent.
Leading the campaign against the latest deal, which is too generous to China, is former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, an influential opposition politician who first allowed Chinese investment in Sri Lanka when he was leader from 2005-15.
The clashes, in which demonstrators threw stones and police used tear gas and water cannon, underlined the depth of resentment at China's expansion felt by local people, who feared they would be forced from their homes.
The Chinese foreign ministry said Beijing was doing what was best for both countries. 

The Chinese embassy in Colombo did not respond to a request for comment on investments in Sri Lanka.
The Sri Lankan protests are not the first sign of opposition to China's One Belt plans to build land corridors across Southeast Asia, Pakistan and Central Asia and maritime routes opening up trade with the Middle East and Europe.
Rail links from China through Laos and Thailand have hit the buffers over resistance to Beijing's excessive demands and unfavorable financing.

"IMPINGES ON SOVEREIGNTY"
Under the original deal negotiated by Rajapaksa during his tenure, the container terminal at Hambantota was to be operated by a joint venture between China Harbor Engineering Co. and state-run China Merchants Port Holdings for 40 years.
The Port Authority of Sri Lanka would retain control of all other terminals in the harbor, as well as a 6,000 acre industrial zone.
But last month, the administration of Rajapaksa's successor President Maithripala Sirisena, who came to office threatening to cancel high-value Chinese contracts on the grounds they were unfair, approved a deal to lease 80 percent of the port to China Merchants Port Holdings for $1.12 billion.
The company also got the lease for 99 years.
Officials said Sirisena's hand was forced by the country's high debt burden and the fact that inflows from countries including India and the United States were less than expected, despite a $1.5 billion, three-year IMF loan program agreed last year.
"A 99-year lease impinges on Sri Lanka's sovereign rights, because a foreign company will enjoy the rights of the landlord over the free port and the main harbor," said Rajapaksa.
"This is not an issue with China or with foreign investors. It is about getting the best deal for Sri Lanka," he told Reuters in an interview.
The government also announced the lease of a much bigger 15,000 acres of land around the port for an industrial zone controlled by China Merchants Port Holdings, which has become a lightning rod for protests.
The demonstrators said they feared eviction from their land to make way for the site, a concern that China put down to a misunderstanding.
China Merchants Port Holdings declined to comment on the protests.

"WE ARE NOT LEAVING"
China has spent $1.7 billion building Hambantota port and the adjacent Mattala Rajapaksa airport, named after the former president, both of which are under-utilized and losing money.
Losses at the port added up to around $230 million in the five years to the end of 2016, according to the Sri Lankan finance ministry.
China's ambassador to Sri Lanka, Yi Xianliang, said the country would invest $5 billion more in the next three to five years and create 100,000 jobs "if everything goes well."
Last week, a policeman stood guard at the foundation stone of the proposed new zone in a forest clearing in Hambantota to prevent protesters from marching on the area.
"We are firmly against this project. We don't want our land to be given to the Chinese. We are not leaving the area," said Upul Dhammika, a farmer whose land is located where the government has tried to survey for the industrial zone.

SLEEPY OUTPOST
Rajapaksa questioned the need for the Chinese to be given 15,000 acres, which he said was more than three times the area of all other economic zones in the country combined.
Isolated from the West over allegations of human rights abuses during the country's civil war, Rajapaksa struck major deals with the Chinese when he was in power, including Hambantota and the nearby airport.
Sirisena, elected two years ago, vowed to review some of those agreements, including a $1.4 billion "port city" in the capital Colombo which was put on hold in 2015.
That, said a Chinese source with knowledge of the recent negotiations, upset Beijing, and so it pushed for the best possible deal on Hambantota.
"They (China) were really angry with the new government, until it agreed (to) an 80 percent port deal," the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks.
The Chinese embassy in Colombo did not respond when asked about that aspect of the negotiations.
Beijing also threatened lawsuits when the new administration sought to review some of the old agreements, an official in the international trade ministry said.
China's position was that it won the contracts on merit and a change of government should not have a bearing on these deals.
Sri Lankan Port Minister Arjuna Ranatunga said Hambantota port was losing money and the government had to go for a debt-for-equity deal to reduce the financial burden on the country.
Sri Lanka's national debt stands at around $64 billion, or 76 percent of gross domestic product, one of the highest among emerging economies. 

It owes China over $8 billion.
For now, Hambantota remains a sleepy outpost. 

Four years after the port and airport were completed, there is one flight a day and barely five to six ships docking each week.
The highway leading to the town is largely deserted, a new conference hall is unused and even a large cricket stadium built by the Chinese is used mainly for wedding receptions.

Violent Protests Against Chinese Colony In Sri Lanka Rage On

By Wade Shepard

During a recent visit to China, Sri Lanka's former president Mahinda Rajapaksa warned that there could be mass public unrest in Sri Lanka if China was to carry out its plan to take over the Hambantota deep sea port and create a nearby 15,000-acre special economic zone. 

While the former president has not been hesitant to publicly heckle his country’s current administration, who unexpectedly ousted him in early 2015, he seems to have been on point here:
Earlier today, as the ceremonial first brick of what has now been dubbed the Southern Industrial Zone was laid in Hambantota, the place erupted in violet protests which left more than ten people hospitalized and many others incarcerated.

Sri Lankan security personnel and Buddhist monks clash during a protest in the southern port city of Hambantota on January 7, 2017. Sri Lankan nationalists, monks and local residents are protesting the creation of an industrial zone for Chinese investments on the island. 

On the eve of the second anniversary of Sri Lanka’s President Maithripala Sirisena coming to power, a groundbreaking agreement was to be finalized with China that would dictate the future of the the country's southern Hambantota region for generations. 

According to the plan, an 80% share of the Hambantota deep sea port as well as land for the massive new industrial zone would be ceded to China for the next 99 years in exchange for $1.1 billion in debt relief.
While Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe previously declared this deal to be “a once in a lifetime opportunity” to boost his country’s economy and help with its colossal debt crisis, many people in Hambantota don’t quite agree. 

A group of demonstrators led by Buddhist monks from nearby Amabalantota took to the streets as the opening ceremony of the industrial zone took place.
However, these protesters were met by mobs of government supporters, who reputedly attacked them with clubs and fists. 

The monk-led demonstrators fought back by throwing rocks. 

The police, meanwhile, found themselves in the middle of the fray, using water cannons and tear gas to disperse the crowd. 

Ambulances were seen carting away injured demonstrators and law enforcement officers.
The main reasons for the protests against the impending Chinese handover was the perceived loss of autonomy to a foreign power as well as the land grab that could be necessary to build the 15,000-acre industrial zone.
"We are against leasing the lands where people live and do their farming, while there are identified lands for an industrial zone. When you give away such a vast area of land, you can't stop the area becoming a Chinese colony," local politician DV Chanaka was quoted as saying by Al Jazeera.

Sri Lankan security personnel and Buddhist monks clash during a protest in the southern port city of Hambantota on January 7, 2017. Sri Lankan nationalists, monks and local residents are protesting the creation of an industrial zone for Chinese investments on the island.

When discussing where the land would actually come from to build this industrial zone, the Sri Lankan government was quick to claim that it would not be taken from the local elephant and bird sanctuaries, or from any operating stone quarries, or from the area that was previously reserved for a housing development for government officials, or even from the land earmarked for the port to expand. 

It soon became clear to the locals that the only land left for a development of this scale would be their villages and farms, which they depend on for their livelihoods. 

As former president Rajapaksa already pointed out in China, they didn’t like the sounds of this.
“When we first heard that the government was planning to give away 15,000 acres of land from Hambantota to China we remained vigilant as to find out from where these lands are going to be acquired. It was when the DS officials appeared in Medilla with surveyors that we realise that Medilla is the victim. So all the residents in Hambantota banded together to protest against this land grab,” a local resident named H.E. Yasaratne told the Sunday Leader, a Sri Lankan national publication.

Sri Lankan activists lead by Buddhist monks pelt stones at police during a protest in the southern port city of Hambantota on January 7, 2017. Sri Lankan nationalists, monks and local residents are protesting the creation of an industrial zone for Chinese investments on the island. 

Meanwhile, the Ceylon Ports General Employees Union have been protesting the impending 99-year lease of the lion's share of the Hambantota deep sea port to the China Merchants Ports Holding Company by wearing black armbands while they worked in the ports of Hambantota, Galle, and Trincomalee.
“But the argument against the arrangement is that the country will have no control over the port which in course of time might become a national and strategic asset," journalist P.K. Balachandran wrote in the New Indian Express. 

"The Hambantota port will be Chinese and not Sri Lankan. And that could also mean inviting unwanted international strategic interest in the port and converting Sri Lanka into a theater of regional and global rivalries, principally between China and India.”
As of now, Sri Lanka has only inked a framework agreement with China in regards to the lease of the port and the land for the industrial zone. 

While this agreement was expected to be signed into formal policy today, January 7th, the public reaction against it has caused Sri Lanka to step back and re-evaluate the deal. 

To these ends, a government committee has been created whose job it will be to re-negotiate the agreement with China and devise a final plan by the end of the month.

A Sri Lankan police personnel leads a monk from a protest in the southern port city of Hambantota on January 7, 2017. Sri Lankan nationalists, monks and local residents are protesting the creation of an industrial zone for Chinese investments on the island.

The story behind Sri Lanka’s Hambantota mega-project is a complicated and twisted dive into domestic and international politics, geo-economics, big national ambitions, and the hunger of China to expand its economic reach, as I've previously covered on Forbes.com:
Developing the Hambantota region started as a dream of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, and has become emblematic of his highly-controversial reign and is a highly polarizing topic within Sri Lanka. 

The vision was to build a number two city that would grow up around an emerging deep sea port in an under-developed, jungle area that’s best known for its pristine beaches and wildlife preserves.
The Hambantota dream hasn’t quite worked out as designed. 

Infrastructure development is always a long-term endeavor, but building a completely new city and economy up from scratch in a remote area is another level of undertaking altogether. 

Without an accompanying industrial zone or other local businesses to drive demand, Hambantota’s deep sea port struggled to attract ships and cargo volumes, Mattala International Airport became known as the world’s emptiest because of the region's inability to attract passengers, newly paved, multi-lane highways provided thoroughfares for a severe lack of vehicles, the new cricket stadium was deficient of matches, and the conference center sat empty except for the odd local wedding. 

All the while, this loss-making infrastructure continued consuming massive amounts of national revenue to operate and maintain.
Far from becoming the catalyst that would propel growth in Sri Lanka’s lagging southern region, Hambantota has so far contributed to a monumental debt trap that's rattled the country to its financial core and prompted a recent IMF bailout. 

Nearly all of the infrastructure built in Hambantota was done with Chinese money, bringing Sri Lanka’s debt to the superpower to the east up to over $8 billion.
Hambantota is a starkly polarizing topic in Sri Lanka. 

What started out as a large-scale project to turn an under-developed swath of jungle into a regional epicenter of trade turned into a symbol for opaque and corrupt government dealings, poor planning, and heated rivalries between political factions.

Sri Lankan activists lead by Buddhist monks pelt stones at police during a protest in the southern port city of Hambantota on January 7, 2017. 

While the current government in Sri Lanka blames the Hambantota debacle on the former president, many of the same criticisms that they once directed towards the Rajapaksa regime have now been boomeranged back at them. 

Earlier this week, opposition politicians have petitioned Sri Lanka’s supreme court for an inquiry into the impending Hambantota deal with China, saying that “no one seems to know what the agreement on the Hambantota port is between the Government and China” and that “even some cabinet Ministers are clueless about the deal.”
However, according to an informal survey on the front page of Sri Lanka's Daily Mirror, supporters of the 80% handover of the Hambantota port currently outweigh detractors two to one.

Screenshot of the Hambantota port handover survey on the front page of Sri Lanka's Daily Mirror.