Student Organizations to Occupy Central Hong Kong | WPN World People News

China's state-controlled media are warning against "political confrontation" ahead of a mass pro-democracy rally set for Tuesday in Hong Kong.

Hundreds of thousands of protesters are expected to show up. Some plan to stay overnight as part of a campaign to shut down the city's financial district.

Zhou Yongkang is secretary-general of the Hong Kong Federation of Students, which is among the groups planning a sit-in. He told VOA's Mandarin service his group aims to apply peaceful pressure on Beijing.

“This will be a way to show to society this is exactly what the Occupy movement is about. It can be a peaceful, non-violent and orderly way to carry out this process. It will be a ripple effect, to push the government, to make it understand that it really has a crisis in governance here,” said Zhou.

The protest comes after nearly 800,000 Hong Kongers voted on plans for electoral autonomy in an unofficial, 10-day referendum organized by the Occupy Central movement.

The referendum and protest reflect a growing discontent among Hong Kong residents, who are concerned their civil liberties are being whittled away by mainland authorities.

The state-run Global Times on Monday called the vote "farcical" and divisive. It warned that political confrontation "will not bring about democracy, but will only shake the region's foundation for practicing democracy."

Such mass protests have in the past convinced Beijing to alter its policies toward Hong Kong, but this time Communist Party leaders appear to be standing firm.

The party last month issued a white paper emphasizing its "comprehensive jurisdiction" over Hong Kong, which it stressed did not enjoy "full autonomy." The paper prompted outrage and helped galvanize support for this week's protest.

Scott Harold, a Chinese foreign policy specialist with the RAND Corporation, told VOA that Beijing's heavy-handed approach has not been helpful for resolving the crisis.

"China is finding that its approaches for dealing with Hong Kong - whether in terms of outright intimidation through the White Paper, or the appointment of pro-Beijing politicians, or even what is widely suspected to be a campaign of covert manipulation through replacement of critical media voices with more pliable media voices and leveraging a triad to deliver messages to those who don't get in line - are not succeeding in cowing the Hong Kong people. Instead, they've only incentivized them to stand up more by essentially revealing that the threat is real," said Harold.

Hong Kong residents enjoy more civil and political rights than their counterparts on the mainland due to an agreement with Britain, which returned the territory to Chinese rule in 1997.

Beijing has promised to allow Hong Kongers to vote for their elected officials in 2017, but has insisted that it will only allow candidates that it pre-approves.

Source: Voice of America