Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that can help answer the question.
Query: How many members of the the United Democrats of Hong Kong are there?
The United Democrats supported Chris Patten, the last Governor's controversial reform proposal which largely broadened the franchise and heavily criticised by Beijing. The party remained open critic of the Beijing policies. After the reform proposal was passed, the Beijing government set up the 57-member Preliminary Working Committee (PWC) for the preparation works of the establishment of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and planning for an alternative body, the Provisional Legislative Council (PLC) to the 1995 elected legislature under Patten's proposal. No members from the United Democrats was appointed as PWC member or Hong Kong Affairs Advisor.
The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) is a public research university in Shatin, Hong Kong formally established in 1963 by a charter granted by the Legislative Council of Hong Kong. It is the territory's second oldest university and was founded as a federation of three existing colleges – Chung Chi College, New Asia College and United College – the oldest of which was founded in 1949.
Unlike most varieties of Chinese, Cantonese has de facto official status in Hong Kong and Macau, and has an independent tradition of the written vernacular. Taishanese, who make up one-third of the population of Hong Kong, may identify themselves with Cantonese instead of Taishanese. Since Hong Kong culture is heavily Cantonese-influenced and is a Cantonese-speaking society, Taishanese and other Han Chinese who are Hong Kong born and raised, assimilate into the Cantonese identity of Hong Kong. Many Hong Kong activists are of Taishanese ancestry such as the late Szeto Wah who was a politician of the pan-democracy camp and sang democratic Cantonese songs with other activists to promote democracy in China.
Starting from 1995, "UNI" has supported president Jacques Chirac against the French Socialist Party. Its anti-socialist position pushed the "UNI" to get closer to the RPR and now to the UMP, the main French right-wing party. Some of its members also belong to the Movement for France, a more traditionalist conservative political party. "UNI" activists often participate to UMP rallies even though the two organizations do remain independent.
Pollock was instrumental to the establishment of the University of Hong Kong as he was one of the founders of the University. Pollock was originally a member of the council of the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese. In March 1908, along with Sir Paul Chater, Sir Kai Ho-Kai and a few other people, Pollock was appointed to the newly founded organising committee of the University of Hong Kong which was chaired by Sir Paul Chater by then governor Sir Frederick Lugard (later Lord Lugard). When the University of Hong Kong was officially founded in 1911, Pollock was appointed a life member of the University Court. Pollock was said to be an active member who frequently attend the Court's meetings, and was noted for his enthusiasm towards the development of the University. In acknowledging his contribution, he received Honorary Doctorates of Law from the University on 5 January 1925.
Pollock had close ties with St. Stephen's College as he was one of the guests invited to the foundation stone-laying ceremony of the College's new school site in Stanley in 1928. Furthermore, in 1933, under the assistance from him and Sir Robert Kotewall, the student-actors and student-actresses of the College were allowed to play on the same stage in a fundraising drama event regardless the opposition from the conservative Chinese community.
The three largest and most significant political parties that support the Union are the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative and Unionist Party, all of which organise and stand in elections across Great Britain. The three parties have philosophical differences about what Scotland's status should be, particularly in their support of devolution (historically Home Rule) or federalism. These parties hold representation in both the Scottish and UK Parliaments. Other smaller political parties support the Union, including the UK Independence Party (UKIP), A Better Britain – Unionist Party, Britain First, Britannica Party, the British National Party (BNP), National Front (NF) and the Scottish Unionist Party (SUP).
The University of Hong Kong (HKU) is a public research university in Hong Kong. Founded in 1911, its origins trace back to the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese, which was founded in 1887. It is the oldest tertiary institution in Hong Kong.
The RCG argues that socialists should not give their support to the centre/centre-left Labour Party, which is one of the major political parties in the United Kingdom. On this subject, David Yaffe stated the RCG's position that "no anti-imperialist or socialist movement can be built unless the British left makes a fundamental and irrevocable break with the British Labour Party." He went on to characterise the party's policies in government as being "openly racist, imperialist and warmongering". At the same time it has remained critical of other socialist organisations in Britain such as the Communist Party of Great Britain, Militant, the International Marxist Group and the Socialist Workers Party for what it sees as being "major obstacle[s]" to the building of an anti-imperialist movement in Britain. This is because many of these groups denounced the governments of socialist states such as the Soviet Union, China and Cuba, and instead encouraged their members to vote for the Labour Party.
The Kuomintang unified China in 1927, and started to prepare the state for democracy, as according to Sun's teaching. The Constitution of the Republic of China enacted in 1947 stipulates that different parties shall enjoy equal status, and the National Revolutionary Army was returned to civilian control as the Army of the Republic of China. However, due to the outbreak of the Chinese Civil War, the ROC was under military rule of the KMT during the period of mobilization. In the 1990s, when the martial law ended, all political parties became legal and the Republic of China was democratized. Since then, the President of the Republic of China has been democratically elected by the people of the Free Area. Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party was elected president, making him the first non-KMT president under the Constitution.
The University of Hong Kong was founded in 1911. Governor Sir Frederick Lugard had proposed to establish a university in Hong Kong to compete with the other Great Powers opening universities in China, most notably Prussia, which had just opened the Tongji German Medical School in Shanghai.
Sir Hormusjee Naorojee Mody, an Indian businessman in Hong Kong, learned of Lugard's plan and pledged to donate HK$150,000 towards the construction and HK$30,000 towards other costs. The Hong Kong Government and the business sector in southern China, which were both equally eager to learn "secrets of the West's success" (referring to technological advances made since the Industrial Revolution), also gave their support. The Government contributed a site at West Point. Swire Group contributed £40,000 to endow a chair in Engineering, in addition to thousands of dollars in equipment (its aim was partly to bolster its corporate image following the death of a passenger on board one of its ships, "Fatshan", and the subsequent unrest stirred by the Self-Government Society). Along with donations from other donors including the British Government and companies such as HSBC, Lugard finally had enough to fund the building of the university.
Malaysia's predominant political party, the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), held power in the coalition known as the Barisan Nasional (formerly the Alliance) with other parties since Malaya's independence in 1957 until 2018. In 1973, an alliance of communally based parties was replaced with a broader coalition – the Barisan Nasional — composed of fourteen parties. Today the Barisan Nasional coalition has three prominent members – the UMNO, MCA (Malaysian Chinese Association) and MIC (Malaysian Indian Congress). The current Prime Minister of Malaysia is from Pakatan Harapan (PH) who is the ex-UMNO leader, marking the first time the post is occupied by a non-UMNO party member.
However, according to Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Center for Public Policy Analysis, the United League for Democracy in Laos, the Lao Human Rights Council, the Lao Veterans of America Institute, and many human rights organizations, non-governmental organizations, and policy experts, the reality in Laos is quite different, and the Marxist government generally does not abide by its own Constitution. The Lao government in Vientiane has been frequently condemned by the US Congress, United Nations Committee on Racial Discrimination, European Parliament and human rights advocates, especially in light of the imprisonment of pro-democracy Lao student leaders in October 1999, the persecution of Hmong refugees and asylum seekers and the recent abduction and disappearance of civil society leader Sombath Somphone.
The Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) was established in 1913, and has over 500 member institutions in over 50 countries across the Commonwealth. It is the world’s oldest international network of universities and its mission is to promote and support excellence in higher education for the benefit of individuals and societies throughout the commonwealth and beyond. While it is the oldest university network, it represents the future – it has a combined population of 3 billion, mainly under the age of 30, in Commonwealth countries.
China practices a form of democracy that it calls socialist consultative democracy. Socialist Consultative Democracy is the form of democracy that exists in the People's Republic of China, though at least one source says that this form of democracy was created by the Communist Party of China. According to an article on Qiushi Journal, "Consultative democracy was created by the CPC and the Chinese people as a form of socialist democracy. In this sense, consultative democracy represents the grand product of our efforts to enrich and develop Marxist theories on democracy. Socialist consultative democracy exhibits distinctive features as well as unique advantages. Not only representing a commitment to socialism, it carries forward China’s fine political and cultural traditions. Not only representing a commitment to the organizational principles and leadership mode of democratic centralism, it also affirms the role of the general public in democracy. Not only representing a commitment to the leadership of the CPC, it also gives play to the role of all political parties and organizations as well as people of all ethnic groups and all sectors of society".
Since then the Conservative and Labour parties have dominated British politics, and have alternated in government ever since. However, the UK is not quite a two-party system as other parties have significant support. The Liberal Democrats were the third largest party until the 2015 general election when they were overtaken by the Scottish National Party in terms of seats and UK political party membership, and by the UK Independence Party in terms of votes.
Desmond Lim Bak Chuan (; born 1968) is a Singaporean politician. He is the current leader of the political party Singapore Democratic Alliance (SDA) and current President of DL's Caring Community. During the Singaporean by-election, 2013, which he ultimately lost, Lim held the first online rally in Singapore.
After the independence of Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in Africa in 1980 and British Honduras (now Belize) in Central America in 1981, the last major colony that remained was Hong Kong, with a population of over 5 million. With 1997 approaching, the United Kingdom and China negotiated the Sino-British Joint Declaration, which led to the whole of Hong Kong becoming a "special administrative region" of China in 1997, subject to various conditions intended to guarantee the preservation of Hong Kong's capitalist economy and its way of life under British rule for at least 50 years after the handover. George Town in the Cayman Islands has consequently become the largest city in the Overseas Territories.
The Commons, the last of the "estates" of the Kingdom, are represented in the House of Commons, which is formally styled "The Honourable The Commons in Parliament Assembled" ("commons" coming not from the term "commoner", but from "", the old French term for a district). In 2016, the House consists of 650 members. Each Member of Parliament (MP) is chosen by a single constituency by the First-Past-the-Post electoral system. Universal adult suffrage exists for those 18 and over; citizens of the United Kingdom, and those of the Republic of Ireland and Commonwealth nations resident in the United Kingdom, are qualified to vote, unless they are in prison at the time of the election. The term of members of the House of Commons depends on the term of Parliament, a maximum of five years; a general election, during which all the seats are contested, occurs after each dissolution (see below).
The Conservative Party, the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats (formerly as the Liberal Party) have, in modern times, been considered the UK's three major political parties, representing the British traditions of conservatism, socialism and liberalism, respectively. However, in both the 2015 and 2017 general elections, the Scottish National Party was the third-largest party by number of seats won, ahead of the Liberal Democrats. Most of the remaining seats were won by parties that contest elections only in one part of the UK: Plaid Cymru (Wales only); and the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Féin (Northern Ireland only). In accordance with party policy, no elected Sinn Féin members of parliament have ever attended the House of Commons to speak on behalf of their constituents because of the requirement to take an oath of allegiance to the monarch.
The Conservative Party, officially the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom. It is currently the governing party, having been so since the 2010 general election, where a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats was formed. In 2015, the Conservatives led by David Cameron won a surprise majority and formed the first majority Conservative government since 1992. However, the snap election on 8 June 2017 resulted in a hung parliament, and the party lost its parliamentary majority. It is reliant on the support of a Northern Irish political party, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), in order to command a majority in the House of Commons through a confidence-and-supply deal. The party leader, Theresa May, has served as both Leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister since July 2016. It is the largest party in local government with 9,008 councillors. The Conservative Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United Kingdom, the other being its modern rival, the Labour Party.
Throughout the Imperial Japanese occupation, Hong Kong was ruled as a detained terrain and was subjected to martial law. Headed by General Rensuke Isogai, the Imperial Japanese established their administration and commanding post at the Peninsula Hotel in Kowloon. The military government, composed of the departments of politics, civilian, economy, judiciary, and navy, enacted stringent regulations and established executive bureaus to have power over all residents of Hong Kong. They also set up the puppet Chinese Representative Council and Chinese Cooperative Council consisting of local leading Chinese and Eurasian community leaders. On top of Governor Mark Young, 7,000 British soldiers and civilians were kept in prisoner-of-war or internment camps, such as Sham Shui Po Prisoner Camp and Stanley Internment Camp. Famine, malnourishment and sickness were pervasive. Severe cases of malnutrition among inmates occurred in the Stanley Internment Camp in 1945. Moreover, the Imperial Japanese military government blockaded Victoria Harbour and controlled warehouses.
The Council was created on October 15, 1993, in a meeting in Taipei, Taiwan. There are nine member parties, an associate member, and one party with observer status. Currently, many democrats in Asia have a relationship with CALD. CALD has also opened its membership to like-minded individuals, and regularly engages with non-member political parties from Japan and South Korea with which it shares the same democratic values. The Democratic Party of Japan is one of the examples. On the other hand, for the convenience of particular members, they also accept individual members like the situation in Hong Kong. The Democratic Party of Hong Kong is represented in CALD by Martin Lee and Sin Chung Kai. The third individual member of the CALD was Indonesia's ex-President Abdurrahman Wahid (1940–2009). Aung San Suu Kyi is honorary member of CALD.
In preparation for the first Legislative Council direct election in 1991, members of the three political groups and many liberal activists of the JCPDG joined together and formed the United Democrats of Hong Kong in April 1990. Chaired by the Martin Lee, the United Democrats of Hong Kong formed an alliance with Anthony Cheung Bing-leung's Meeting Point in the campaign. The liberal alliance won a landslide victory in the direct election, receiving over 52% of the vote and winning 14 of the 16 geographical constituency seats in September. The popularity of the pro-democratic alliance was principally rose from its position towards the Tiananmen Square protests and the widespread fear towards the Beijing government afterwards.
The Tiananmen Square crackdown in June 1989, which the Hong Kong liberals strongly supported the student protestors and opposed to the crackdown, worsened the group's relationship with Beijing. In April 1990, the members of the Meeting Point as well as the ADPL and HKAS formed a new party, the United Democrats of Hong Kong led by Martin Lee, who was seen as "treason" by Beijing at that time, in the preparation for the 1991 first direct election for the Legislative Council of Hong Kong. The Meeting Point won a historical landslide victory with the United Democrats, with Fred Li Wah-ming and Tik Chi-yuen winning 2 seats in the geographical constituencies. It gained an extra seat in a by-election in 1991 with Zachary Wong Wai-yin won in the New Territories West constituency. It formally converted to a political party on 13 September 1992 with about 150 old members reaffirming their commitment to the party. Contrast to the United Democrats, the Meeting Point remained a more pragmatic stance and harmonious relationship with the Beijing government. In 1992, Edward Leong Che-hung of the Medical constituency joined the Meeting Point with some members of Leong's Hong Kong Democratic Foundation.
The party was established by a group of conservative businesspeople and professionals in the Hong Kong Basic Law Consultative Committee (BLCC), Hong Kong Basic Law Drafting Committee (BLDC), which was often called the "Group of 89", and appointed members in the Legislative Council of Hong Kong (LegCo) who worried about welfare spending and adversarial on 6 November 1990, as the reaction to the liberals forming the United Democrats of Hong Kong (UDHK) on the eve of the first direct LegCo elections. The objective of party was to support candidates to fun in the upcoming elections. Due to lack of popular basis and experience, the group invited Maria Tam Wai-chu, member of the Executive and Legislative Councils and her Progressive Hong Kong Society (PHKS) to join, as well as four councillors from the Hong Kong Civic Association. Hu Fa-kuang became the founding Chairman, while Maria Tam and Philip Kwok Chi-kuen the founding Vice-Chairmen.