Rallies in Asian Cities Protest Economic Policies
By KEVIN DREW
Published: October 15, 2011
HONG KONG — People throughout the Asia-Pacific rallied on Saturday to protest the widening gap between rich and poor as part of a planned day of demonstrations in dozens of cities across the world against the global financial system.
In Private, Wall St. Bankers Dismiss Protesters as Unsophisticated (October 15, 2011)
Most events drew modest numbers across Asia — the largest crowd was in Sydney, Australia, where some news reports estimated up to 800 were in attendance. Rallies in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Taipei, Seoul and Melbourne, Australia, drew a few hundred people each.
Planned protests across Europe later Saturday are expected to be larger. The protests are being held as finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of 20 industrialized nations meet in Paris to discuss the global economy, including ways to tackle Europe’s sovereign debt crisis.
Saturday’s protests sprang first from demonstrations in Spain in May and then the “Occupy Wall Street” movement that began last month in New York. The May demonstrations in Spain, which drew thousands of protesters at sit-ins in cities across the country, focused on a perceived failure by politicians to alleviate economic hardships, as well as claims of political corruption. The “Occupy” protests in the United States have drawn a variety of groups and has spread from New York to other American cities.
In a year of protest, the demonstrators’ unifying theme is anger at politicians for not easing economic hardships in developed economies and a growing gap between the wealthy and poor.
In Sydney, several hundred protesters, some carrying signs with slogans as disparate as “We are the 99%” and “Capitalism is Killing our Economy,” packed onto one of the art-deco style public thoroughfares outside the headquarters of the Reserve Bank of Australia in Sydney’s financial district. The atmosphere was lively, with a brass band providing music and hand-drawn chalk artworks springing up on the sidewalk.
There seemed, however, to be little agreement on an agenda between the various factions competing for time on the public address system. Many individuals seemed to have difficulty articulating just what it was that they were protesting against.
“Everyone knows there’s a stink in the room and this is our way of letting the government know that we’re unhappy,” said one protester, whose identity was obscured behind one of the white Guy Fawkes masks that have become ubiquitous at the Occupy Wall Street rallies. He cited the potential ecological damage from coal-seam gas exploration, political corruption in Australian politics and the unfairness of jaywalking laws as chief among the reasons he had decided to join the protest.
The protesters remained past the time allowed by police permits and some began setting up tents for what they said was intended to be a long-term occupation. Local media reported that a similar rally in Melbourne, Australia’s second-largest city, drew about 200 protesters.
In central Tokyo, where periodic rallies against nuclear power have been held since the March accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, about 300 protesters marched with signs through busy streets and heavy traffic, chanting “We’re with Occupy Wall Street!” “Down with the rich!” and “No more nukes!”
Two young men held a banner that expressed a somewhat apologetic solidarity with the world: “Radioactivity has no borders. To the world from Japan: Sorry!” Another held a sign that simply read, “Let’s complain more.”
“Even timid Japanese are finally starting to push for change,” said Miku Ohkura, 24, a college student in Tokyo, who said she had already been to about a half-dozen protests for various causes in the last few months. She said that apart from being anti-nuclear, younger people were also angry at being made to bear the brunt of Japan’s economic woes, many unemployed or too poor to start families. “We all have different messages, but we’re all alike in that we want society to become more equal,” she said.
In Hong Kong, about 200 people rallied at Exchange Square, an open area near the International Finance Center, in the heart of the city’s banking and commerce district. Various groups staged sit-ins alongside each other, protesting issues ranging from growing income disparity to a local political system that some demonstrators said is undemocratic.
“Our society needs justice,” a protester, Faning Yim, said. “Money isn’t the only thing that is valuable. This government is a dictatorship that is controlled by communists in China.”
Thousands of people protested in Hong Kong in March, criticizing the government then for not doing enough to help the poor. A far larger crowd marched through downtown Hong Kong on July 1, the anniversary of the territory’s return to China, over the widening income gap.
A 2009 report by the United Nations Development Report found Hong Kong having the greatest income disparity of the 38 developed economies it studied.
“It’s just embarrassing,” said Nury Vittachi, a Hong Kong resident who attended Saturday’s rally. The Hong Kong government likes to stress stability and prosperity, Mr. Vittachi said, but a widening wealth gap threatens those ideals.
The Yonhap News service reported about 300 people had gathered in front of the headquarters of South Korea’s financial regulator in Seoul’s financial district before a gathering planned for Saturday evening.
The Bloomberg news service reported several hundred people sat quietly outside the Taipei World Financial Center as part of a protest in that city.
Matt Siegel contributed reporting from Sydney, Australia, and Hiroko Tabuchi from Tokyo.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/world/occupy-wall-street-protests-worldwide.html
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