Hong Kongers celebrated a decade of Chinese rule yesterday with a colorful parade, a dazzling display by paratroopers and a mass street protest to call for progress on democratic reform.
Several thousand pro-democracy protesters streamed through the city as they marched to the government's downtown headquarters from Victoria Park, one of the few remaining vestiges of British colonialism since the Chinese took control on July 1, 1997.
Under the handover agreement negotiated by Britain and China in 1984, Hong Kongers are entitled to eventually elect their leader and legislature, although the document is vague on when that is supposed to happen.
Police put the number of protesters at about 20,000. Organizers said 68,000 people had turned out.
Many joined the march as it snaked through residential and business districts, waving banners calling for universal suffrage, cleaner skies and an improvement in social welfare.
"We can all see that there hasn't been any democratic progress in the past 10 years," said Anson Chan (
Chan, who has become a key figure in the pro-democracy movement, also called for changes to address Hong Kong's growing rich-poor divide and worsening air pollution.
Earlier in the day, Chinese and Hong Kong leaders praised the territory for bouncing back from a turbulent decade of financial, health and political crises, but warned that the next 10 years would pose equally tough challenges from Asian cities threatening to eclipse it as a global business capital.
"The competition ahead is fierce. We are not only competing with neighboring cities, but with cities around the world," said Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang (曾蔭權), who was sworn in yesterday for a second term.
A Chinese freighter that allegedly snapped an undersea cable linking Taiwan proper to Penghu County is suspected of being owned by a Chinese state-run company and had docked at the ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung for three months using different names. On Tuesday last week, the Togo-flagged freighter Hong Tai 58 (宏泰58號) and its Chinese crew were detained after the Taipei-Penghu No. 3 submarine cable was severed. When the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) first attempted to detain the ship on grounds of possible sabotage, its crew said the ship’s name was Hong Tai 168, although the Automatic Identification System (AIS)
An Akizuki-class destroyer last month made the first-ever solo transit of a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship through the Taiwan Strait, Japanese government officials with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. The JS Akizuki carried out a north-to-south transit through the Taiwan Strait on Feb. 5 as it sailed to the South China Sea to participate in a joint exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces that day. The Japanese destroyer JS Sazanami in September last year made the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s first-ever transit through the Taiwan Strait, but it was joined by vessels from New Zealand and Australia,
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
SECURITY: The purpose for giving Hong Kong and Macau residents more lenient paths to permanent residency no longer applies due to China’s policies, a source said The government is considering removing an optional path to citizenship for residents from Hong Kong and Macau, and lengthening the terms for permanent residence eligibility, a source said yesterday. In a bid to prevent the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from infiltrating Taiwan through immigration from Hong Kong and Macau, the government could amend immigration laws for residents of the territories who currently receive preferential treatment, an official familiar with the matter speaking on condition of anonymity said. The move was part of “national security-related legislative reform,” they added. Under the amendments, arrivals from the Chinese territories would have to reside in Taiwan for
RSS