HK pro-democracy student activists launch new party

HONG KONG

Hong Kong student activists who entered the spotlight after the 2014 pro-democracy protests launched Sunday a new political party called Demosisto.

Demosisto has vowed to work toward the territory’s self-determination in relations with Beijing and expressed plans to field two lists of candidates in an election this September for Legislative Council seats, the South China Morning Post reported.

Nathan Law Kwun-chung, a former leader of the Hong Kong Federation of Students who now serves as the party’s chair, stressed that ethnicity should not be a divisive factor and that disregarding the China factor would be “insensitive”.

“We don’t see ourselves as localists,” Law told a press conference, expressing doubt about the feasibility of pro-independence efforts in the former British colony’s near future.

“There might be some discrepancies between our camp and theirs,” he added.

Since returning to Chinese rule in 1997, Hong Kong has been governed under a "one country, two systems" formula that affords its residents freedoms not enjoyed on the mainland.

Joshua Wong Chi-fung -- a former convenor of the now defunct Scholarism group who has become Demosisto’s secretary, said Sunday that independence should be included as an option in a referendum stipulated in the party’s manifesto.

He underlined that the party would dedicate considerable effort to lobbying international organizations for what he described as Hong Kong’s “right to self-determination”, the Post reported.

According to the document, the party seeks to adopt non-violent protest tactics and to hold a plebiscite in a decade asking Hongkongers what kind of status they seek for the territory beyond 2047 -- the year marking the expiration of the “one country, two systems” formula.

In late 2015, major roads in the city had been blocked amid 11-week protests against "fake democracy" that involved more than 100,000 people at their peak.

The Occupy protests were seen as one of the most serious challenges to China's authority since the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests that ended in a bloody crackdown in Beijing.