On TV, Hong Kong Openly Debates Democracy

HONG KONG - After more than three weeks of sit-in protests here in Asia's most important financial center, student leaders engaged Hong Kong government officials in a scholarly and civil televised debate on Tuesday about the future of democracy in the city.

While there were signs that both sides were trying to move toward a solution that would ease the anger in the streets, no substantive agreement was reached.

The meeting resembled less a negotiating session than a high school debate. A panel of student leaders in black T-shirts sparred politely with government officials wearing suits and ties, with both sides citing articles of Hong Kong's city charter, the Basic Law, to back up their points.

Carrie Lam, the second-highest ranking official in the city, told the students that the government was willing to submit a new report to the national government in Beijing that would take into account their views on how to conduct the 2017 municipal election. Strict guidelines issued by the Communist Party-controlled national legislature in Beijing sparked the protests.

Ms. Lam told the students on Tuesday that the guidelines - which among other things require that all candidates for chief executive, the city's top post, be approved by a committee stacked with Beijing supporters - would remain in effect for the 2017 election, though they might be changed after that.

The students stuck with their demands for immediate changes to the city's election law to allow a wider range of candidates to run.

Nevertheless, Ms. Lam's offer drew some interest from the student leaders. 'What is the next step?' asked Alex Chow, 24, the general secretary of the Hong Kong Federation of Students, after hearing Ms. Lam's offer. 'Do you have a time frame? Do you have a road map to see in which direction our constitutional development is going?'

Ms. Lam told reporters afterward that the government would give no further ground on the election rules. 'As far as their position is concerned, I'm afraid that we can only agree to disagree,' she said, adding that it was the government's 'firm position' that the rules would be followed in the 2017 election. 'If the students cannot accept this position, then I'm afraid we'll continue to have different views.'

The Hong Kong government has been trying to defuse the biggest political crisis in the city since 1997, when China resumed sovereignty over the city of 7.2 million after more than 150 years of British rule. Thousands of pro-democracy protesters have clogged the area around the government headquarters in the city center, as well as two busy shopping districts, turning main streets into colorful tent cities.

What began as relatively small demonstrations mushroomed into a broad movement after the police used pepper spray and tear gas in an attempt to break them up on Sept. 28, and protesters used umbrellas to shield themselves from the chemicals.

Students spearheading the protests, which have come to be known as the Umbrella Movement, demanded talks with the government to air their grievances. The students say that Beijing was given a misleading report by the Hong Kong government on the political mood in the city, influencing how the legislature wrote the election guidelines.

Ms. Lam rejected that charge, and said the students should accept that the guidelines represented a step forward, because they open up the election of the chief executive to all of Hong Kong's five million eligible voters for the first time.

'I don't know why you don't consider that important progress in our quest for democracy,' Ms. Lam said.

The current chief executive, Leung Chun-ying, was appointed on the recommendation of a committee of Hong Kong's political elite and representatives of what are called functional constituencies - industry, professional and social groups that have seats reserved for them in Hong Kong's legislature. The students want the functional-constituency system abolished.

The government has rejected or ignored all of the student's demands except for their request for talks, and those have not been easy to organize. A meeting scheduled for Oct. 10 was canceled after the government withdrew.

Mr. Leung made clear in an interview on Monday that government representatives would not be negotiating with the students. Rather, he said, they would listen to what the students had to say and would explain to them how Hong Kong's political process works, emphasizing that the city's voters would lose their chance to elect his successor if the city did not go along with the guidelines from Beijing.

'We have deliberately said it is a dialogue,' Mr. Leung said in the interview. 'We are all ears, and obviously we are duty-bound to explain to the students and through the media the constitutional arrangements for us to have universal suffrage in Hong Kong. It is indeed surprising that most of the young people who are now occupying certain parts of Hong Kong do not understand.'

Mr. Leung himself has been a focus of the protesters' ire. At least twice in the two-hour debate on Tuesday, student leaders reminded the government officials of comments Mr. Leung made the day before, asserting that fully open democracy would lead to undesirable populism and policies skewed toward the poor.

Students and other protesters watching the debate on large projection screens at the main sit-in protest site in central Hong Kong said they were happy that the government was at least willing to talk.

'This is the first time the government has spoken with protesters on an equal level,' said Teddy Yeung, a computer engineering student wearing a red bandanna. 'That's already a step forward for us.'

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