Calum MacLeod

USA TODAY

BEIJING — Hong Kong pro-democracy protest leader Joshua Wong continued a hunger strike Tuesday, in an effort to force government officials into dialogue over controversial election proposals.

Wong, just 18 but already the highly prominent leader of the Scholarism student group, began his strike late Monday, with two other group members.

"I know it is really harmful to my body, however it is the only way to give pressure to the government to get a meeting with us," Wong told CNN.

"If the government can have a proper meeting with Scholarism to discuss whether political reform will be launched immediately, we will stop the hunger strike."

City authorities, and the Chinese central government in Beijing, have offered no concessions to protesters' demands that they amend plans to screen all candidates for Hong Kong's 2017 leadership elections. Frustration at those restrictions, and anger at police actions against protesters, have galvanized demonstrations that have occupied major streets in the South China port city

Meanwhile at a news conference Tuesday, the three co-founders of another protest group, the Occupy Central with Love and Peace movement, promised to surrender to police Wednesday afternoon.

"We don't know what will happen after we hand ourselves in, whether we will be detained or released, but we are prepared for the consequences," said Benny Tai, according to the South China Morning Post newspaper.

"As we prepare to surrender, we three urge the students to retreat — to put down deep roots in the community and transform the movement to extend the spirit of the Umbrella Movement," said Tai, and his two co-founders, Chu Yiu-ming and Chan Kin-man, in an open letter to Hong Kong's people.

The divergent tactics of the protesters underscore the difficulty of reaching a widely acceptable conclusion to the more than two-month-old protest movement, which is not controlled by any single group and remains far from achieving its stated goals. Violent clashes Sunday and Monday followed a call by another student group to escalate the protests.

The campaign got its umbrella icon from the efforts of protesters to ward off police tear gas, which was used again Sunday night, along with batons and water hoses, as police stopped people laying siege to government offices. More than 40 protesters were hospitalized. Alex Chow, secretary general of the Hong Kong Federation of Students, admitted Monday they had failed to "paralyze" the government.

Hong Kong's embattled chief executive Leung Chun-Ying condemned "violent radicals" Monday after the escalation in clashes overnight. "Many residents are of the view that there is a limit to their tolerance," said Leung, reported the Post.

Despite public resentment at the continued disruption from the protests, it seemed unlikely Tuesday that most protesters would heed the OCLP call to retreat.

The broader movement, one of the strongest challenges to Chinese Communist Party rule since the 1989 pro-democracy protests in Beijing and other cities, drew over 100,000 participants in its early weeks, but support has since weakened, and some residents are angry at the effects on traffic, businesses and daily life.