Hong Kong’s pro-democracy party moves to disband

When Yeung Sum co-founded the city’s largest pro-democracy party more than 30 years ago, he knew building a democratic Hong Kong would be a “difficult dream.” Still, it was not impossible.

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Today, his Democratic Party is moving towards dissolution, a symbolic marker of the diminishing Western-style civil liberties and high degree of autonomy that the ruling Communist Party in Beijing promised to keep intact in the former British colony for at least 50 years when it returned to China in 1997.

Former chairperson Yeung said in an interview that Chinese officials told him the party needed to disband. He urged his members to support the motion to give the leadership mandate to handle the process.