Oh snap.
Late Thursday, Chief secretary Carrie Lam called off Friday’s much-anticipated talks with the Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS) as she “realised that the basis for a constructive dialogue between [the government and] the students has been seriously undermined”.
Lam said that the decision was based on remarks the student leaders have made publicly in the past couple days, in particular this afternoon. At a press conference today Alex Chow, the leader of HKFS, declared that the occupations would continue if the government did not give in to their demands during the talks.
The chief secretary expressed regret that they will be unable to have a meeting “which will produce any constructive outcome”. Yeah, it’d be really hard to have a constructive outcome result from a now NONEXISTENT meeting.
She went on to say that the basis for a constructive dialogue depended on two things. Firstly, that any discussion of constitutional development would have to be in accordance with the Basic Law and any relevant decisions by Beijing and secondly, that Occupy Central end as soon as possible.
Lam said that since the student leaders had said the protests would continue, it would be “misleading and not acceptable… for these talks between the [government and] the students to be linked to whether and when the protests would stop”.
So… the student protesters refuse to back down until the government accepts their demands, namely true universal suffrage and chief executive CY Leung’s resignation… And the government refuses to talk to them until they agree to stop protesting, or at least pretend that the talks have nothing to do with the protests?
Don’t worry. Lam maintains that the government remains “open and sincere” about having a dialogue with the students.
Settle in, folks. We’re in for a long ride.
Photo: Laurel Chor/Coconuts Media
