Beijing Shifts Approach Towards Hong Kong's Pro-Democrats

Frank Ching has another insightful column in the South China Morning Post today. He writes:

After 16 years of ostracising members of the pro-democracy camp, Beijing is finally adjusting its policy towards Hong Kong.

The communist government is using its tried-and-true strategy of forging a united front, such as with its old enemy, the nationalist party in Taiwan, and in Hong Kong with democrats, whom only last year it had excoriated as "traitors".

This is a significant readjustment of the policy visa-vis Hong Kong. Previously, Beijing had tried to isolate Hong Kong's democrats by uniting with all the other parties. However, this did not work because the democrats had the support of a majority of the electorate.

Now, it is likely that Beijing will try a more sophisticated tactic, that of divide and rule. By no longer trying to exclude democrats from functions such as the dinner for Vice-President Zeng Qinghong on Sunday night, the central government is allowing divisions to appear within democratic ranks.

To read more:
http://focus.scmp.com/focusnews/ZZZ7V4LJJDE.html