On Saturday, Hong Kong pro-democracy demonstrators recaptured parts of a core protest. The protests have been going on for three weeks and pose one of the biggest challenges for China since the crushing of pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing in 1989. It is also the gravest governance crisis to be faced by Hong Kong's government since the 1997 handover to China, with no clear resolution in sight. Hong Kong Police Commissioner Andy Tsangbroke three weeks of public silence saying his force had been “extremely tolerant” but had failed to stop protesters becoming more “radical or violent”. According to him “these illegal acts are undermining the rule of law, undermining (what) Hong Kong has been relying on to succeed”. The protesters, led by a restive generation of students, have been demanding China's Communist Party rulers live up to constitutional promises to grant full democracy to the former British colony which returned to Chinese rule in 1997. Hong Kong is ruled under a “one country, two systems” formula that allows the thriving capitalist hub wide-ranging autonomy and freedoms and specifies universal suffrage for Hong Kong as an eventual goal. But Beijing ruled on August 31 it would screen candidates who want to run for the city's chief executive in 2017, which democracy activists said rendered the universal suffrage concept meaningless. The protesters ask for free elections for their leader. The street battles come just hours after Hong Kong's pro-Beijing leader Leung Chun-ying offered talks to student leaders next Tuesday in an attempt to defuse the three-week long protests. Despite this offer of talks, few expect any resolution without more concrete concessions from authorities. The gLawcal Team LIBEAC project Saturday, 18 October 2014 (Source:Reuters) This news has been realized by gLAWcal—Global Law Initiatives for Sustainable Development in collaboration with the University Institute of European Studies (IUSE) in Turin, Italy and the University of Piemonte Orientale, Novara, Italy which are both beneficiaries of the European Union Research Executive Agency IRSES Project “Liberalism in Between Europe And China” (LIBEAC) coordinated by Aix-Marseille University (CEPERC). This work has been realized in the framework of Workpackages 4, coordinated by University Institute of European Studies (IUSE) in Turin, Italy.