TELEVISED talks between Hong Kong government officials and student protest leaders began today.

The city’s chief executive Leung Chun-ying has offered dialogue on how to elect a 1,200-member nominating committee that will vet candidates for elections due in 2017.

They will be the first ever universal suffrage elections held in the city, a former disenfranchised British colony that has increased citizens’ political participation since its 1997 reunification with China.

But student activists are unhappy that electoral candidates need to be vetted at all and demand an open selection process.

Hong Kong residents have increasingly turned against the student movement for disrupting the city. Barricades have been attacked and crowds have cheered police clearing protest sites.

But public opinion could shift again after Mr Leung told Western newspapers he wanted to shut the poor out of the political process.

“If it’s numeric representation, you’d be taking to the half of the people in Hong Kong who earn less than $1,800 (£1,115) a month and end up with that kind of politics,” he told the Financial Times.

His shameless defence of Hong Kong’s financial elite could alienate working-class residents who have so far opposed the students.

However protesters’ refusal to compromise on their demands is also angering locals.

Mr Leung would not be drawn on when police would next make a bid to clear the streets of demonstrators, merely saying Beijing was refusing to get involved.