Hong Kong student leaders said today that they may shun further talks with the government, accusing it of failing to make any meaningful offers to end the weeks of mass pro-democracy rallies and roadblocks.
The comments are a blow to the city’s Beijing-backed leaders who had expressed hopes for fresh rounds of talks after meeting face-to-face with students yesterday night for the first time.
The negotiations are widely seen as the only way to end nearly a month of protests — calling for full democracy in the semi-autonomous southern Chinese city — without a police crackdown or further violence.
Fresh confrontations broke out on Wednesday afternoon between protesters and opponents who tried to remove demonstrators’ barricades in the Mongkok district.
The first talks last night made little headway, with students calling the government “vague” in its commitment to finding a genuine compromise.
“About whether there will be talks in the future, this is something that isn’t decided,” Hong Kong Federation of Students Secretary General Alex Chow told reporters on Wednesday morning.
“The government has to come up with some way to solve this problem, but what they are offering does not have any practical content,” Chow said, adding that protesters will not leave the streets any time soon.
The two sides are at loggerheads over how the city’s next leader should be chosen in 2017, when a direct election for the post will be introduced.
Protesters want the public to have the right to nominate candidates.
But Beijing ruled in August that only those vetted by a loyalist committee would be allowed to stand — something protesters dismiss as “fake democracy’’.
During talks, government negotiators insisted Beijing would never agree to civil nomination.
But they made a series of conciliatory offers including a promise to brief mainland officials on recent events and a suggestion both sides could set up a “platform” to discuss further political reform beyond 2017.
Student leaders remain unimpressed, saying the government has offered nothing concrete.
They called on officials to give a clearer indication of what their proposals actually entail.
A crowd of about 70 protesters marched on the residence of Hong Kong’s current leader Leung Chun-ying in the afternoon, angered over his recent comments that open elections would put voting power into the hands of people “who earn less than $1,800 a month”.