(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Hundreds of protesters regrouped in central Hong Kong yesterday to push their call for democracy, a day after the government called off talks with students aimed at defusing a two-week standoff that has shaken communist China's capitalist hub.
Scores arrived with tents, suggesting they were in for the long haul despite a call by police to remove obstacles that have blocked major roads in and out of the financial centre, causing traffic and commuter chaos with tail-backs stretching for miles.
Police said they would take action at an appropriate time, without specifying what.
The government's decision to call off the talks yesterday came as democratic lawmakers demanded anti-graft officers investigate a $6.4m business pay-out to the city's pro-Beijing leader, Leung Chun-ying, while in office.
Australia's Fairfax Media this week revealed the business pay-out to Leung by an Australian engineering company.
"For sure it will be jam packed with people later today in Admiralty after people get off work and students finish school," said Joshua Wong, a 17-year-old who heads the group Scholarism that represents secondary school pupils.
Admiralty is home to government offices next to the Central business district, giving the name to the "Occupy Central" movement, which has combined with the student protests, pushing the government to introduce universal suffrage.
China rules the former British colony through a "one country, two systems" formula which allows wide-ranging autonomy and freedoms not enjoyed on the mainland and specifies universal suffrage as an eventual goal.
But Beijing ruled on August 31 it would screen candidates who want to run for the city's election for a chief executive in 2017, which democracy activists said rendered the notion of universal suffrage meaningless.
Hong Kong Chief Secretary Carrie Lam said the talks with the students were off because of the strident demands for universal suffrage, which she said was not in accordance with the city's mini-constitution, and because of their "illegal" occupation of parts of the city and calls for people to rally.
China has also branded the protests illegal and yesterday criticised the US Congress for sending the "wrong message" to demonstrators with its encouragement in a "deliberate attack" on China.
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