#ows #p2 #p21 #tlot #tcot #teaparty #union #iww #occupy Chinese leader’s reforms are bad news for Hong Kong http://blogs.reuters.com/ian-bremmer/2014/09/08/chinese-leaders-reforms-are-bad-news-for-hong-kong/ In 1997, Britain returned Hong Kong to China after some 150 years of colonial rule. In exchange, China agreed to a set of principles: Hong Kong would maintain its capitalist system for half a century, by which point its chief executive and members of the legislature would be elected by universal suffrage. As the thinking went, “one country, two systems” would suffice in the interim; Hong Kong and the Mainland would surely converge on democracy in the half-century to come. Not so fast. Recently, Beijing has been systematically moving in the other direction. The decision on August 31 to rule out democratic elections for Hong Kong in 2017 was just the latest example. Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s transformational reform agenda is driving this shift—and it does not bode well for Hong Kong...