http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/30/world/asia/the-hong-kong-protests-what-you-should-know.html 2014-09-29 21:28:48 The Hong Kong Protests: What You Should Know A look at why the political movements behind the protests would never have taken root in any other Chinese city. === Hong Kong belongs to China. But the grass-roots political movements responsible for the Freedom of speech, assembly, religion and a free press are all enshrined in Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, the It is a system called “one country, two systems” that the leaders in Beijing hope — or hoped — would someday also be applied to Taiwan to encourage its political reunion with the motherland. Taiwan has been ruled separately since 1949. Lately, however, Chinese officials, It is the wording of the Basic Law, and the legislature’s interpretation of what it means, that set off the dramatic street protests in Hong Kong last week. British colonial governors were picked by London, and, since the handover 17 years ago, Hong Kong’s chief executives have been chosen by a small group dominated by Beijing loyalists. The current chief executive, Leung Chun-ying, was elected in 2012 with 689 votes from an election committee of fewer than 1,200 people voting. In 2007, the People’s Congress The hitch: the “broadly representative nominating committee.” For more than a year, an eclectic group of pro-democracy activists, encompassing university professors, Christian evangelicals, students and a set of lawmakers in Hong Kong’s Legislative Council, had warned Beijing that if it set rules for the elections that did not comply with internationally accepted norms for free and fair elections, they would engage in a nonviolent protests in the Central district of Hong Kong, the heart of Asia’s most important financial center. They drew on civil disobedience movements of the past, Beijing didn’t blink. Now, the movement, called