HONG KONG -- With turned backs and loud jeers as the Chinese
flag was flown over the harbor, protesters on Wednesday kicked off the National Day holiday they hope will see the biggest display yet of their mass civil disobedience campaign for greater democracy.
Student leader Joshua Wong, the 17-year-old founder of the influential Scholarism protest movement, led 30 people who turned their backs on the flag near the government's official flag-raising ceremony in the Wanchai district, "to show our disagreement towards the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), especially for the decision made on political reform in Hong Kong," he said.
The party's restrictive plans for the 2017 election for Hong Kong's leader sparked weeks of occasional protest culminating in a mass occupation of several key business areas.
With the holiday, Wong expects even larger numbers on the streets to demand the resignation of Hong Kong's chief executive, Leung Chun-ying, and that Beijing withdraw its electoral decision. Leung has called the protests illegal and said Beijing will not change its mind.
"I hope the people will keep safe and still rely on the ...
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Earliest history of the region
The lands near the confluence of the Ussuri and the Amur Rivers, where today's Khabarovsk stands, have been populated for many centuries by Tungusic people, probably related to the Jurchens of the past and/or the Nanais of the present day. Chinese expeditions reached this area as early as the first half of the 15th century, when the fleets of the Ming eunuch Yishiha sailed several times from Jilin City all the way to Tyr on the lower Amur.
17th-century Russian explorers
In the mid-17th century, the Amur Valley became the scene of hostilities between the Russian Cossacks, trying to expand into the region and to collect tribute from the natives, and the rising Manchu Qing Dynasty, intent on securing the region for itself.
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