News Digest

Hong Kong protestors set for talks with government as roads remain blocked

Talks between pro-democracy student leaders and the government tonight pose the best chance of a peaceful ending to more than three weeks of demonstrations that have disrupted Hong Kong and divided its citizens. At 6 p.m. local time, five student leaders will meet with five government negotiators led by Chief Secretary Carrie Lam for a two-hour televised talk that observers say could give protesters a chance to end their occupation without surrendering their position. Demonstrators have paralysed parts of Hong Kong with mass rallies and road blockades for more than three weeks, in one of the biggest challenges to Beijing’s authority since the Tiananmen pro-democracy protests of 1989.

Eventually the Chinese authorities will clear the streets one way or the other. Having talks means there is more scope for finding a solution that will avoid the need for them to clear the students.

Steve Tsang, senior fellow of the China Policy Institute at the University of Nottingham

The one wild card in the proposed negotiations is the largely autonomous occupation by protesters in the Mong Kok district, over whom the students have little sway. While the student-led occupation of a major road between government offices in Admiralty and the Central financial district has been peaceful for several days, the situation across the harbor in Mong Kok remains tense. Police used batons, shields and pepper spray on Oct. 17 and Oct. 18 after crowds estimated at around 9,000 poured into the streets to take back areas that had been cleared.