[Free HK] After Criticism From Hong Kong’s Leader, Publisher Raises Book’s Print Run

http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com...ader-a-publication-raises-its-print-run/?_r=0

Can Hong Kong aspire to independence from China? As long as there is a collective will, a 20-year-old university student in the city has said, “Why not?”

The student, Brian Leung, does not have as high a profile as Joshua Wong, the 18-year-old who was one of the public faces of almost three months of protests in Hong Kong last year. But it was an article by Mr. Leung, published in a monthly publication called Undergrad, that prompted a stern warning from Hong Kong’s chief executive on Wednesday.

“It advocates that Hong Kong should find a way to self-reliance and self-determination,” the chief executive, Leung Chun-ying, who is not related to the 20-year-old student, said of the article in his annual policy address. “We must stay alert. We also ask political figures with close ties to the leaders of the student movement to advise them against putting forward such fallacies.”

Brian Leung, who wrote the cover story of the February issue of Undergrad, the publication of the student union of the University of Hong Kong, and who was editor of the magazine at the time, said by telephone on Wednesday evening that his phone had not stopped ringing since the chief executive delivered his policy address. The February article, titled “Hong Kong People Deciding Their Own Fate,” also appeared in Hong Kong Nationalism, a compilation of articles published in September that was also cited in the annual address.

“Now, thanks to C.Y. Leung’s promotion, we’re printing more copies of the book in one to two weeks,” the younger Mr. Leung said, referring to the chief executive. The book had an original print run of 2,500 copies, but 3,000 more will be printed, he said.

In August, China’s top legislative body ruled out direct elections for Hong Kong’s top leadership, saying that while Hong Kong’s five million voters would be able to cast votes for a chief executive starting in 2017, the short list of candidates must first be approved by a committee dominated by pro-Beijing interests. The decision set off the three months of protests.

Hong Kong, a former British colony, returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, with the Beijing government promising a “high degree of autonomy” for the territory.

But Brian Leung, who was among those who blockaded Hong Kong’s streets late last year, said there were growing signs that the promise of autonomy was being broken, a point that Hong Kong residents are unlikely to accept quietly.

“The Chinese Communist Party has turned a whole generation of young Hong Kong people against it,” Mr. Leung said. “Yet C.Y. Leung has refused to respond to our demand and resorted to attacking us. He’s shameless.”

In his article in Undergrad, the younger Mr. Leung argues that as long as there is a collective will, a community should have the right to determine its future, with possibilities including — but not limited to — independence. His arguments include the fact that Hong Kong residents increasingly identify themselves as “Hong Kong people,” rather than as “Chinese.”

While he tried to make a case for Hong Kong’s right to pursue independence, Mr. Leung said that result was not, in fact, his preference.

“There’s no significant popular support for Hong Kong’s independence, so I’m advocating that we fight for as much autonomy as possible under the ‘One Country, Two Systems,’ principle,” he said. “But if we don’t have a universal and equal suffrage in 2017, more people, and I, would side with independence.”

The recent protests in Hong Kong “have united us and made us less averse to more vigorous forms of protests,” he added.

But the idea that Hong Kong should be self-reliant and autonomous clashes with the views of Hong Kong’s chief executive, who, in his annual address on Wednesday, envisioned ever-closer economic ties between the city and mainland China, and who has repeatedly emphasized Beijing’s power over the city.

“Hong Kong’s autonomy under ‘One Country, Two Systems’ is a high degree of autonomy, not an absolute autonomy,” the chief executive said. Under the Basic Law, he continued, the chief executive is accountable to the local government as well as to Beijing. “As we pursue democracy, we should act in accordance with the law, or Hong Kong will degenerate into anarchy.”