Hong Kong leader to protesters: You have 'zero chance'

Hours after Hong Kong's embattled leader Leung Chun-ying vowed on Sunday to stay in office, warning students demanding his resignation that their pro-democracy movement was out of control, police removed some of the protesters barricades before the Monday morning rush hour.

Officers took away unmanned metal barricades at the edges of the city's Central financial district at 5:30 a.m. Monday.

In response, protest leaders used social media to call for help from supporters to reinforce other barricades. Dozens of protesters locked arms and faced off against officers in a brief standoff at the other end of the protest zone in the Admiralty district.

   Police said they also removed some barricades from another protest zone, across Victoria Harbor in the crowded Mong Kok shopping district. Police said they didn't want to clear the entire protest zone but instead wanted to relieve congestion and reduce the chance of traffic accidents.

"Today we haven't come to clear the area," a police officer told protesters on local TV. "We just want to clear the barricades blocking the road and take back the government's tools and other property."

Leung said the blockade of key parts of the Asian financial hub, now entering its third week, could not continue indefinitely.

Speaking in an interview with the local TVB television station, Leung said his government would continue to try to talk with student leaders but did not rule out the use of "minimum force" to clear the area.

The last few weeks had "proved that a mass movement is something easy to start, but difficult to stop," he said.

"And no one can direct the direction and pace of this movement. It is now a movement that has lost control."

Leung also said that there was "zero chance" that China's leaders in Beijing would change an August decision limiting democracy in Hong Kong.

Beijing has said that only candidates screened by a nomination committee will be able to contest a city-wide vote to choose the next chief executive in 2017. The protesters say this violates the city's Basic Law, the Hong Kong constitution that promises that the city's leader be selected by "universal suffrage upon nomination by a broadly representative nominating committee in accordance with democratic procedures."

The former British colony was promised that its freedoms would be protected under a "one country, two systems" formula, when Britain handed its old colony back to China 17 years ago.

The official People's Daily in Beijing described the so-called Occupy Central movement as "unrest" in a front-page editorial published on Saturday — language some analysts said reflected the growing unease among China's leaders.

Leung's comments came as the protest center outside government head offices in Admiralty took on the feel of a festival campsite in a canyon of skyscrapers.

"In here, it is like a piece of green land," said Maggie Cheung, a 27-year-old kindergarten teacher, who added that she would leave to start work tomorrow.

"People are caring and we are sharing the same goal — we fight for a better future. It is like utopia here."

Numbers dropped significantly last week, rising again on Friday night as 10,000 people turned out to hear protest leaders urge the public to prepare for a protracted struggle.

Some 200 tents now line Gloucester and Harcourt roads on what had been one of Hong Kong's busiest thoroughfares leading to the Central financial district.

Hundreds of protesters, young and old, slept overnight in what some protesters described as the most peaceful, relaxed night yet. Some strummed guitars between speeches, others played cards or read.

Some students studied in a makeshift classroom, complete with desks and power sockets set up on the highway.

Many family groups visited the site on Sunday, taking advantage of balmy autumn conditions.

Not everyone was happy with the carnival atmosphere. Construction workers and a drivers' union challenged the students to end their protests, and warning them to dismantle the barricades as it was effecting their work.

"Democracy is very important but people's livelihoods are also very important," said Chan Tak-keung, one of a group of angry taxi drivers who shouted at the students in Admiralty.

Wire services