Hong Kong Protest Shifts, but World Democracies Ignore

On Sunday, the leaders of Hong Kong’s democracy protests abruptly scrapped a poll of protester sentiment they had announced just days earlier. The idea of the poll had been to get protesters’ reactions to two bones thrown to them by the Hong Kong government in televised talks held on October 21.

In those talks, protest leaders wanted to talk about democracy and, in particular, reversal of Beijing’s August 31 edict ruling out a competitive chief executive election in 2017. The government’s representatives put those topics off limits and instead offered a report to Beijing protests and to create a “platform” for further discussion.