Peking lässt Hongkongs Demokratie kaum Spielraum, schreibt der Economist anlässlich des Jahrestags der Machtübergabe in der ehemaligen Kronkolonie an China: This time, China's leaders were better prepared. By a series of well-timed moves, they took some of the sting out of a huge demonstration for universal suffrage. The democrats' protest on July 1st—a public holiday marking Hong Kong's handover to China in 1997—attracted hundreds of thousands of people. The immediate political impact will not be as great as the fallout from a similar march a year ago. But it will still give China's leaders and their Hong Kong supporters pause. Last year, the democrats startled both the Hong Kong government and China's central leadership in Beijing by pulling about half a million people into a protest chiefly aimed at a proposed anti-subversion bill. That display of people power, unprecedented in scale since the handover, led to resignations from Hong Kong's cabinet and the shelving of the bill. A year on, Hong Kong's people still have as much to complain about. In April, China's legislature, the National People's Congress, ruled that there could be no universal suffrage in Hong Kong for at least another eight years, despite opinion polls showing overwhelming support for its early introduction. The mysterious resignations in May of three radio talk-show hosts critical of China's policies in Hong Kong increased widespread suspicion (never proven) of an intimidation campaign by communist sympathisers against democrats. A couple of weeks before the July 1st protest, Hong Kong's police force detained seven Chinese suspected of being mainland security agents conducting an unauthorised investigation—a cause of alarm for the many Hong Kongers who regard the territory as a haven from the mainland's arbitrary legal system. ... There is still a strong likelihood that democrats will make considerable gains in the Legislative Council elections on September 12th. It is not inconceivable that, in spite of a system rigged to favour pro-China candidates, they might gain their first-ever majority. That would be a huge blow to China. But Joseph Cheng, an academic and pro-democracy activist, says the democrats still need “a small miracle” to gain a majority. Even if they do, he adds, they should not underestimate the effectiveness of China's divide-and-rule tactics.

Fotos von der Demo gibts hier oder hier. Bericht in Deutsch u.a. bei der Tagesschau.