Bao Tong
In urging students to set aside their protest, Bao Tong, the former political secretary of CCP general secretary Zhao Ziyang, said he could not predict what the leadership would do. He believed Zhao meant universal suffrage where everyone had the right to vote freely, and not this "special election with Chinese characteristics". Bao said today's PRC leaders should respect the principle that Hong Kong citizens rule themselves, or Deng Xiaoping's promises to Hong Kong would have been fake. Hu Jia co-authored an opinion piece for the "Wall Street Journal", in which he wrote "China has the potential to become an even more relentless, aggressive dictatorship than Russia... Only a strong, unambiguous warning from the US will cause either of those countries to carefully consider the costs of new violent acts of repression. Hong Kong and Ukraine are calling for the rebirth of American global leadership for freedom and democracy."