Hong Kong’s Pro-Democracy March Draws Thousands

By KEITH BRADSHER

HONG KONG — Thousands of people joined a pro-democracy march here on Wednesday, although the turnout fell short of a candlelight vigil held nearly four weeks ago to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown in Beijing.

An enormous crowd for the annual June 4 candlelight vigil, the largest since 1990, had raised the hopes of Hong Kong democracy advocates that the same enthusiasm might carry over to their movement. The movement has been struggling after several small successes from 2003 to 2005, including winning support for blocking the government’s planned introduction of stringent internal security legislation.

The immediacy of democracy demands here has faded somewhat as Beijing officials have ruled out direct elections for the chief executive until 2017 and the legislature until 2020.

The march on Wednesday, on the 12th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to Chinese rule after 156 years of British control, nonetheless drew a large crowd.

Many marchers said they were dissatisfied with government policies to deal with the economy. Unemployment in Hong Kong rose sharply over the winter and leveled off this spring at 5.3 percent — a little over half the rate in the United States, but a shock for a territory where the rate was 3.2 percent last summer.

But the largest single issue seemed to be the limits on democracy in Hong Kong. “The majority comes here for democracy, but there are other grievances against government policy,” said Sin Chung Kai, vice chairman of the Democratic Party.

When Britain returned Hong Kong to Chinese rule in 1997, the Chinese government initially held out the possibility of full democracy after 2007, including the concept in the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s miniconstitution, but stopped short of an unequivocal promise of how and when to achieve universal suffrage.

A committee of 800 people, most with connections to Beijing, chooses the chief executive here, who must then be appointed by leaders in Beijing before taking office. Half the legislature is chosen by the public and half by a variety of interest groups, including banks, chambers of commerce, trade unions and lawyers.

The police estimated that 26,000 people had assembled in Victoria Park on Hong Kong Island as the march began. The organizers had said that they expected more to join the march along the way, and they estimated that 76,000 people took part.

The police had estimated the crowd at the June 4 Tiananmen vigil, at the same location in Victoria Park, at 62,800, while organizers put it at 150,000.

The vigil did have some carryover effect on Wednesday’s march. Jupiter Chan, a 24-year-old graduate student, said that the vigil prompted him to come to the annual democracy march this year for the first time since 2003.

“I was touched by the Fourth of June ceremony, and I felt that if I didn’t come this year, I would regret it later,” he said.