In Hong Kong, Chinese virus rekindles old animosities towards China

Chinese coronavirus outbreak adding to tensions in a city where trust in government has evaporated and China has zero friend.
by Violet Law
The coronavirus has sparked fear in Hong Kong where memories of the 2003 SARS outbreak remain vivid, but it has also reignited long-simmering animosities

Hong Kong -- Minnie Li has thrown herself into Hong Kong's protest movement for the past few years, even joining a hunger strike last summer.
But these days the Shanghai native and university lecturer is greeted with flyers warning that mainland Chinese like her are not welcome -- all in the name of shielding residents from Chinese coronavirus carriers from the mainland.
"I don't feel hurt," said Li. 

"I see this as the 'cross-infection' of politics in the current outbreak."
The coronavirus that emerged in central China in late December 2019 has ravaged the mainland, killing more than 1,100 people and infecting 45,000 others. 

Since Hong Kong confirmed its first case on January 22, there have been 49 reported cases and one death in the semi-autonomous territory.
The outbreak in Hong Kong comes right on the heels of seven months of anti-government protests, triggered in June last year by a now-abandoned extradition bill that would have allowed suspects to be sent for trial on the mainland.
The scale of the protests revealed increasing concern that Hong Kong's freedoms -- guaranteed under the "one country, two systems" framework governing the territory's transition from British to Chinese rule in 1997 -- was being undermined; a view only reinforced by the Hong Kong government's slow response to public anger over the extradition bill and its reliance on police brutality to address the unrest.
That outrage has increased since the Chinese viral outbreak, with Hong Kong residents complaining about officials' failure to prepare for a protracted epidemic and ensure adequate medical supplies. Last week, public hospital employees went on strike to try and force the authorities to close all border crossings with the mainland.

Staff from Hong Kong's Hospital Authority went on strike this month to demand the government close all borders with the mainland to contain the Chinese coronavirus.

Observers say the Chinese coronavirus outbreak has opened a new front in the campaign against interference from the mainland in Hong Kong's internal affairs. "The outbreak comes just when protesters have increasingly turned from mass mobilisation to everyday resistance," said Edmund Cheng, a political scientist at City University of Hong Kong who specialises in social movements. 

"They condemn the government as failing to protect the public's wellbeing so they see fit to take it upon themselves to act."

Renewed anxieties
Despite the protesters clamouring to completely seal the border, two crossings remain open, although visitors from the mainland are now required to go into a 14-day quarantine.
The pressure to close the borders reflects not only fear about a new and unknown infection but is also rooted in the long-simmering tensions between the people of Hong Kong and mainland Chinese after tourism and migration from the mainland boomed in the wake of the 1997 handover.
In the summer of 2003, a few months after the SARS epidemic had battered Hong Kong's economy, Beijing relaxed visa restrictions, enabling hundreds of millions of Chinese tourists to visit.

Under the "one country, two systems" framework, Hong Kong maintains border controls, but Beijing handles visa issuance.
The visa scheme soon mushroomed to cover 49 mainland cities, bringing in 51 million tourists in 2018, accounting for four in every five visitors to Hong Kong. 

By 2018, the city, which has a population of 7.5 million, had a higher visitor-to-resident ratio than even New York City, according to the Peterson Institute in Washington, DC.
The tourism boom contributed between 2 and 4 percent of the city's GDP but sowed anger and frustration in a densely populated city proud of its Cantonese language and identity. 

Mainland visitors mostly speak Mandarin Chinese.
The visitors were attacked as "locusts" -- infamously in a 2012 newspaper advertisement -- and blamed for adding to overcrowding and other social ills.
Hong Kongers came to resent parallel traders from mainland China who took advantage of multiple-entry visas to buy products in Hong Kong to sell at a profit back home.

Over the years, scandals over food safety on the mainland, including contaminated baby formula, milk and pork, fuelled a cottage industry of parallel trading, with people just across the border in Shenzhen taking advantage of a multiple-entry visa policy to buy supplies in Hong Kong and sell them on the mainland for a profit. 

Tensions flared as residents in Hong Kong's border neighbourhoods blamed the mainland shoppers for pushing up the price of basic necessities. 
By 2015, when the Chinese government put a brake on the expanding visa scheme and limited visits by Shenzhen residents, the issue had become fodder for nativists vowing to "defend" Hong Kong.
"[For the people of Hong Kong], our government's lack of autonomy is no longer simply a political problem but now also a public health issue," said Lee Siu Yau, who studies immigration policy and identity at Education University of Hong Kong.
"You can draw a straight line from the immigration issue to the current furore over keeping open some of the border crossings."

These days, as discussions of ballooning infections and mounting casualties on the mainland dominate the online forums where protesters used to strategise, there was little mention of the mainland Chinese who have played a significant role in Hong Kong's protest movement.
Wuhan-born Edward Leung, the founder of a nativist political party currently serving six years behind bars, coined the protest slogan: "Retake Hong Kong, Revolution of Our Times," that has come to define the movement. 

Leung left his native Wuhan as a baby with his family a few years after the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989.

Since the handover, there has been increasing friction between Hong Kong people and mainland Chinese.

Another student leader, Nathan Law -- who was invited to represent Hong Kong's protesters at US President Donald Trump's State of the Union address in Washington, DC -- was born in Shenzhen.
By some estimates, some 1 to 1.5 million Hong Kong residents are recent migrants from the mainland. 

In all, about 40 percent of the territory's population was born elsewhere, overwhelmingly in mainland China.
With the Chinese coronavirus outbreak adding to the sense that the mainland is the source of Hong Kong's woes, some in the territory see China's Communist Party and the Chinese people as one and the same and accuse all mainland Chinese of being complicit in opposing the Hong Kong protesters.
That includes the whistle-blower doctor who died last week from the infection. 

When news of his death filtered out late on Thursday night, words of mourning were soon drowned out by cynical remarks and outright condemnation of the deceased doctor. 

To make their case, some social media users dug out the doctor's postings in support of the Hong Kong police, the brutal enemy of Hong Kong protesters.
But when Li, the lecturer, called out the discrimination and pointed out how ineffective and misguided it would be as a "protective" measure, she said she was attacked in a barrage of nasty comments on Facebook.
"It seems in order to maintain the momentum of the movement it now has to be fuelled by Sinophobia," said Li. 

"That's a real shame."

‘Prepared to Die’: Hong Kong Protesters Embrace Hard-Core Tactics, Challenge Beijing

The resistance, which has mainstream support, is the biggest rebellion against China’s government since Xi Jinping took power

By Natasha Khan and Wenxin Fan

Hong Kong police detain a protester on Monday.

HONG KONG—In 2014, a protester named Chloe camped out on city streets, chanted slogans and planted “seeds of hope,” part of a 79-day occupation of major roads.
The protesters’ demands for greater democracy were ignored.
This summer, the civil servant, who is in her 20s, has zip tied metal barriers together to block roads and dug bricks out of sidewalks to throw at police.
Her primary role is to be “arrest support”—ready to hire lawyers for detained protesters and help their families with an emergency plan.
“Some of them are prepared to die for the movement,” said Chloe.
“I am also willing to die for it.”
Hong Kong’s protests against the mainland government’s increasing reach are emerging as bigger, more frequent and more violent than previous pro-democracy movements.
In a contrast to 2014, when demonstrations were largely led by students, the current action has been embraced by a broader cross-section of Hong Kong society—including civil servants, pop stars, doctors, shopkeepers and people of all ages. 
And those taking part in more radical acts of civil disobedience are finding wider support.
Hard-core current protesters have largely rejected the strategies of veteran leaders, whose approach is seen to have failed.
Actions are mostly organized by anonymous leaders of small groups.
In 2014, named student leaders became well known figures.

An elderly woman is helped after police fired tear gas during Monday’s demonstration.

The shift in attitude means Hong Kong’s resistance has become the biggest open rebellion against China’s ruling Communist Party since Xi Jinping took power in 2012.
“There’s a feeling among many that there’s no other option, that physical confrontation is the only way for the regime to listen to the voices of Hong Kongers,” said Jeffrey Ngo, chief researcher at pro-democracy group Demosisto.
Mr. Ngo said he doesn’t use violence himself in the current protests, but understands why some have resorted to it.
Residents have become increasingly dissatisfied as the government has dug in its heels and police have cracked down. 
Police on the front lines have embraced the use of tear gas—even in residential neighborhoods. Officers have beaten protesters with batons and stormed into shopping malls and subway stations to bring demonstrators to heel. 
Since June 9, 420 people have been arrested, and some have been charged with crimes that carry up to 10-year prison terms.
Beijing has endorsed the way the police have handled the protests and has sent signals it is losing patience with the unrest.
Last week the Chinese army’s Hong Kong garrison released a video showing soldiers performing riot drills and taking part in mock street battles.
Protests across the city continued over the past weekend, the ninth in a row, some with violence, including in tourist and residential areas.
On Monday a protester-led strike disrupted the subways and airport, and kept thousands home from work.
Carrie Lam on Monday, when she condemned the violent protests.

Carrie Lam, the city’s Beijing-backed chief executive, said Monday that the city was becoming dangerous and unstable, and condemned violent protests, in her first public comments in two weeks. She didn’t accede to any of the protesters’ demands.
Demonstrations began in early June as a fight against an extradition bill that would allow people to be sent to China for trial.
The bill was set aside but not formally withdrawn, and protests morphed into a broader ideological battle to preserve Hong Kong’s civil rights against the encroaching authoritarianism of China.
That has come along with irritation with changes stemming from mainland immigration and tourism, including competition for college spots and real estate, the growing necessity for Mandarin-language ability, and even the erosion of the manners Hong Kong people expect when waiting in lines.
The unrest has weighed on tourism and economic activity, and hit business sentiment and financial markets.
The intensity of the protests has alarmed Beijing.
Chinese officials responsible for Hong Kong have issued rebukes and urged the city’s leaders to punish violent demonstrators, calling a return to law and order Hong Kong’s “most pressing priority.”
Chinese army officers have said they are ready to step in if needed, though Hong Kong’s government has dismissed the possibility of calling in troops, a move that would evoke comparisons to the killing of hundreds of protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
Chinese officials have blamed the crisis on "foreign" influences.

Civil servants protested on Friday.

The uprising is a test of Beijing’s position that Hong Kong must not be used as a base to undermine China’s ruling Communist Party.
Lam, in her comments Monday, said some extremists’ call for a revolution—a common chant on the streets in recent weeks—has changed the nature of the protest and are a challenge to China’s sovereignty.
In recent years, Xi has consolidated his power and taken action against dissidents at home, including an iron fist policy in the Muslim-majority Northwest colony of East Turkestan.
A national security law passed in 2015 empowered the government to make more arrests of rights lawyers and suppress criticism on social media.
Hong Kong citizens have raised the high-profile crackdowns as reasons to distrust the Chinese system.
A bilateral treaty between China and the U.K.—made when the city was handed back to China in 1997—guarantees the independence of Hong Kong’s legal system and freedom of expression until 2047.
Xi, however, delivered a speech in 2017 declaring that any overt challenges to China’s authority could undermine the foundation of that system.

Beijing Backs Hong Kong Police's Handling of Increasingly Violent Protests: In a rare news conference, China’s top office for Hong Kong affairs offered support for further efforts by the city's authorities to punish violence and uphold the "rule of law".

The broad-based support for the protests is proving a tactical challenge for Beijing.
A tough response would spur public outcry, and China’s style of quashing opposition through censorship and imprisoning dissidents would be difficult under Hong Kong’s laws defending freedom of information.
The protests have largely been mobilized through the encrypted Telegram messaging app, Facebook and a Reddit-like website called LIHKG.
When prominent pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong, a leader in the 2014 demonstrations, was in prison during the first two weeks of the current protests, his friends ran his social media accounts on his behalf.
People familiar with the Hong Kong government’s strategy say Lam plans to wait out the unrest, betting that as students return to school in September the crisis will be contained.
Lam has made no public effort to reach out to the myriad groups that make up the movement.
Protesters say they have no such timeline and will retreat only if the government responds.
Joshua Wong, a well-known pro-democracy leader from the 2014 protests, took part in a demonstration last month.

The willingness to use violence during the Hong Kong protests was a fringe idea only five years ago. Since the handover, protests have largely consisted of peaceful marches that ended at sunset, or orderly candlelight vigils.
In 2014, the so-called Umbrella Movement protests became large and long-lasting, but the few tussles with police were quickly condemned by the broader movement.
Tear gas was used once.
Chloe, the civil servant, said more aggressive protests are the only way to advocate for their cause.
She describes herself as someone who would rather go shopping and buy makeup than be out all night in the stifling summer heat to battle police officers.
Now, like many protesters, she gets geared up before each protest: umbrellas to shield against pepper spray and gun-fired bean bag rounds; eye goggles to help reduce the effects of tear gas; a helmet; and face mask to hide her identity from police and media cameras.
She often changes out of sight of security cameras, or behind comrades’ umbrellas.

Hong Kong Protests Intensify
Hong Kong demonstrations have grown in size and violence, and the police have responded with heavy force.

An estimated one million people marches in the first major protest of the summer.

Protesters demonstrate outside the Legislative Council complex. Police respond with tear gas, beanbag rounds and rubber bullets. 


Chloe says her resolve has deepened in the past few weeks after authorities ignored protesters’ demands.
“There’s the feeling now that, since so many of us could be arrested later, that we need to give it our all for this cause,” she said.
“There are no longer limits to what we can give.”
Justin, another protester on the front lines, talks less about ideology.
The 19-year-old unemployed school dropout was radicalized after he choked on tear gas in the first major protester clash with the police on June 12.
That day’s images of riot police pointing rubber-bullet guns at protesters and chasing them down city streets shocked city residents.
The day’s clash also prompted Lam to suspend the extradition bill.
“They would ignore you unless you do something to show how firm you are,” Justin said.
“Carrie Lam is the one that taught us this.”
Police fire tear gas during a protest in the Causeway Bay district of Hong Kong on Sunday. 

He decided to crash the July 1 government ceremony celebrating the anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to China.
Expecting a crackdown by police, he and strangers he met in a peaceful assembly days before bought heat-resistant gloves and formed a 10-person squad to grab tear gas canisters and dunk them into the buckets of water, neutralizing their spray.
That night, protesters broke into the city’s legislature, demanding election reform, or what is known as universal suffrage.
Justin acted as a porter, ferrying supplies for an occupation until the plan was aborted and the invaders left before the police arrived.
“If we ask for the sky, we’ll get a window,” said Justin.
“If we just ask for the window, we get nothing.”
The break-in to the legislature—during which protesters unfurled a banner that said “No rioters, only tyranny”—catapulted Brian Leung to the forefront as one of the few known faces of the movement.

THE FIVE DEMANDS
Hong Kong protesters have taken to the streets to advocate for a number of appeals they say must be addressed:

1. Complete withdrawal of an extradition bill that would allow suspects to be tried in China
2. Retraction of the “riot” designation of a June 12 protest
3. Release and exoneration of arrested protesters
4. Formation of an independent commission of inquiry into police handling of the protests
5. Dissolving the Legislative Council by executive order and the immediate implementation of genuine universal suffrage.

Most of the ardent protesters use surgical or antipollution masks to conceal their faces.
Mr. Leung, 25, ripped off his mask as he stood in the middle of the legislative chamber, urging people to stay and occupy the space.
“The escalation of punishment demands an escalation of sacrifice,” the soft-spoken Mr. Leung said later.
He is due to begin the third year of his Ph.D. studying authoritarianism and democracy at the University of Washington in the fall.
“When you look at what other people have given up for this movement, sacrifice seems less unimaginable.”
In the 2014 protests, Mr. Leung mostly stuck to the intellectual side of things, editing the University of Hong Kong’s Undergrad magazine.
This time, Mr. Leung risked arrest by trying to convince others that occupying the legislative building is a now-or-never moment.
His action echoes a message spray-painted outside the vandalized building: “You taught me peaceful protest doesn’t work.”
Brian Leung took off his mask during a protest inside the legislative chamber of the government headquarters on July 1.

Mr. Leung has since fled Hong Kong and faces possible arrest if he returns.
The shift to radicalism has its roots in a 2016 protest where protesters clashed violently with police after the clearance of unlicensed street food sellers—the so-called Fishball Revolution.
Two leaders of a party demanding greater rights for local people, Ray Wong, an interior designer, and university student Edward Leung, were arrested and charged, in a rare move, with inciting a riot.
Mr. Wong fled to Germany, where he was last year granted asylum, and Mr. Leung was sentenced to six years in jail in Hong Kong.
Mr. Wong, 25, said the failure of peaceful protests in 2014 had led him to found the more radical group advocating for the rights of local people, who in his view were being marginalized by mainland immigrants and tourists.
One of the group’s causes was to target the practice of “parallel trading” by mainlanders who came to Hong Kong to buy less expensive or higher quality goods, such as infant formula, creating local shortages.
Meanwhile, mainland buyers of real estate have driven prices higher, and mainlanders take some coveted jobs and university spots.
He and Mr. Leung began using the slogan “Restore Hong Kong. The revolution of our time,” a chant that has emerged again among current protesters.
Some protesters consider Mr. Leung, confined to a maximum-security prison, to be a political prisoner, and a local filmmaker’s documentary about his life sold out in June.
“We Miss You, Edward Leung,” one protester graffitied under a bridge after a recent clash.
“I want you to understand this: Because of your love of Hong Kong, you have shown incredible bravery and changed Hong Kong’s history,” Mr. Leung said in a Facebook letter posted on his behalf last month.
“But please do not let hatred rule you.”
In a challenge for authorities, most groups of more-radical protesters are self-organized and unpredictable, and coordinators avoid the limelight.
Protests can spring up within minutes via encrypted message apps or even just among clusters of people on the streets.
Participants sometimes have no idea what is occurring a block over.
As many as 10,000 can gather quickly and occupy streets for hours, faced off against riot police, then disappear in a flash.
Edward Leung, shown above before sentencing, was convicted for his role in 2016 protests.

“They’re like sponges, absorbing information from each other,” said Brian Leung, the man who unveiled his face in the legislative council.
“There isn’t a commanding pyramid structure but there are nodes, like a social network.”
Many on the streets have become friends, forging a sense of camaraderie and unity on the front lines without any direct leadership.
“Brothers on Hikes, Each on its Own” goes one campaign.
“You’re not a Hong Konger until you have tasted tear gas,” is a common refrain.
Amei, a fresh college graduate who loves graphic novels, first joined the protests alone.
After seeing a lawmaker use a megaphone to host a discussion, she bought her own speaker and began to organize brainstorming discussions for hundreds of strangers.
With her newly made friends, she is now planning to print graphical brochures about Hong Kong’s protest history.
“I’m just a girl and what I can do each time is limited,” she said.
“But there’s no limit how many projects I can do.”
Some of the stalwarts of the pro-democracy movement have stepped to the background, offering support to the radical newcomers to protest the way they see fit.
Roy Kwong, a 36-year-old legislator and romantic novelist, intercedes with police at protests to minimize injuries during clashes.
Joshua Wong, 22, the most internationally known face of the 2014 protests, then often making fiery speeches urging protesters to never give up, has participated in many protests since his release from jail on June 17 and has commented that there is no leader this year.
On Saturday, Mr. Wong handed out McDonald’s vouchers, donated by supporters who heard protesters were running out of money after spending on transport and equipment.

Roy Kwong spoke through a megaphone on July 1. 

The Civil Human Rights Front, an old-guard umbrella organization that comprises about 50 NGOs, pan-democratic parties and other organizations focusing on human-rights issues, has organized some of the biggest rallies over the past two months, including one that they said attracted two million people on June 16.
Bonnie Leung, the group’s 32-year-old vice-convener, said she now receives inquiries from citizens asking for help on how to organize their own marches: for example, how to apply for a permit or arrange field marshals.
The group itself is also planning more protests.
“The people of Hong Kong have woken up in the past two months, and they know that this time it will take more to get the government to listen to us,” said Ms. Leung, whose group doesn’t advocate violence but said they understand why some feel it is necessary.
“The government has left us with no choice. Until they address our demands, we will not stand down.”

Hong Kong’s Muzzled Generation Cries Out

How China Silenced a Movement for Democracy—Until It Couldn’t Anymore
By Suzanne Sataline
Protesters demonstrate against the extradition bill in July 2019
As cars idled bumper to bumper on one of Hong Kong’s busiest highways, a gaggle of young people clad in black darted into traffic. 

Cars swerved. Buses braked. 

Hundreds, then thousands, of teens and 20-somethings flooded the streets, their yellow construction helmets bobbing past red Toyota taxis. 

Like nimble spiders, a few dozen men used plastic ties to knit metal stanchions into road barriers. 

On nearby roads, other crews did the same. 

In roughly 20 minutes, demonstrators had choked off Hong Kong’s Legislative Council, the city’s quasi-parliament, and ignited one of the largest protests since Britain returned this former colony to China in 1997.
On June 12, lawmakers were poised to debate a bill that would have allowed Hong Kong to extradite suspected criminals to mainland China. 

The city’s Beijing-backed chief executive, Carrie Lam, said the law would prevent fugitives from taking refuge in the territory. 

Her critics feared it would erode Hong Kong’s autonomy, enabling greater interference from Beijing. Under the draft version of the bill, virtually anyone in Hong Kong—business owners, religious figures, members of the political opposition—could be transferred to the People’s Republic, where they would face an opaque and politicized legal system notoriously heedless of due process. 

Chinese prosecutors could easily dredge up past infractions or craft new charges to ensnare businesspeople or dissidents.
For months, opposition to the bill had mounted. 

Its potential sweep galvanized lawyers, students, civil rights groups, and even businesses and some foreign governments. 

In April, an estimated 130,000 people marched against the draft law. 

By early June, when a vote seemed imminent, protest organizers claimed that more than a million people had mobilized. 

But June 12 was a turning point. 

In an afternoon that shocked the city, thousands of police officers in black riot helmets fired tear gas, rubber bullets, and bean bag rounds into the crowd. 

More than 80 people reported injuries; many of those who sought medical care were arrested at hospitals.
The brutal display hardened public opinion against Lam, eventually pushing her to offer a vaguely worded apology and indefinitely suspend the law. 

The following day, on June 16, an estimated two million protesters poured into the streets to demand that Lam permanently withdraw the bill. 

It was a stunning rebuke of Beijing and its acolytes in Hong Kong, but Lam and her backers stood firm. 

Although she promised not to reintroduce the bill until certain conflicts and concerns are addressed, she refused to kill it permanently.
Protests have continued since then, most recently on July 1, when thousands of demonstrators breached the legislature, smashing windows and destroying part of the building’s façade. 

At the forefront are angry and frightened young people, who in recent years have weathered an assault on their civil and political rights. 

For them, the extradition bill has become a symbol, not just of Beijing’s creeping authoritarianism but of a sustained, years-long campaign to silence their generation. 

“We know if the bill passed, that means our generation and the next generation will be affected,” said Simon, a 22-year-old undergraduate who joined hundreds of sweaty protesters outside the Legislative Council on June 12. 

His friend Alex, a recent graduate of Polytechnic University, added later by text: “The extradition bill is a war against the whole young generation.”

A WAR ON THE YOUTH
Hong Kong dangles off the southern coast of the world’s largest and mightiest one-party state. Through an arrangement known as “one country, two systems,” brokered between Britain and China as part of the territory’s transfer in 1997, Hong Kong is supposed to manage most of its internal affairs until 2047. 

The city has never been a democracy, but its mini-constitution enshrines expansive civil liberties—to congregate and publish, to seek office and speak out—that residents celebrate with zeal. 

In 2003, massive protests thwarted a national security law that would have introduced heavy penalties for subversion, treason, and sedition. 

Then in 2012, students boycotted classes to protest a so-called “patriotic and moral curriculum,” which critics said whitewashed the history of the Chinese Communist Party. 

The plan was eventually shelved. 

And every year on July 1, the anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover to China, residents celebrate their right to complain and seek change by marching for all manner of causes and concerns—political, social, and environmental. 

The day is a cacophonous carnival of objections and pleas, a din heard rarely in Asia and nowhere else in China.
Still, Beijing enjoys outsized influence in Hong Kong. 

The majority of Legislative Council members side with the authoritarian state, and while the city’s chief executive is formally selected through a complex electoral college, informally, he or she is handpicked by Beijing. 

Over the years, China has repeatedly rebuffed Hong Kongers’ requests for universal suffrage and for an end to mainland meddling, most recently in 2014. 

That September, what started as a brief sit-in to demand full suffrage blossomed into a vast street occupation led by university students. 

By some estimates, the Umbrella Movement, so named for the protesters’ preferred defense against police pepper spray, drew hundreds of thousands of people. 

But the Hong Kong and Beijing governments conceded nothing.
Since then, Beijing and its allies in Hong Kong have waged an effective campaign to intimidate young protest leaders. 

Young people have been denied their rights to operate political parties and seek elective office. 

They have been targeted in political prosecutions, hounded by pro-Beijing media, and subjected to online hacks and other harassment. 

As a result, the number of young people who participated in politics, or even civic causes, dwindled in 2017 and 2018.
Many of those who remained engaged in politics grew more radicalized as a result. 

Out of the failed 2014 protests a new pro-democracy movement was born. 

Some of its followers called for complete independence from China and greater pride in Hong Kong’s culture and history. 

Many also denigrated mainland Chinese visitors and recent Hong Kong transplants who spoke Mandarin, giving the movement a populist tinge. 

Mainland officials and newspapers denounced the movement’s leaders as secessionists and accused them of committing treason.
Hong Kong’s government has worked hard to keep the independence idea out of the Legislative Council, where the public chooses half of the members. 

In 2016, the election bureau barred several young candidates from seeking office because of their pro-independence views. 

One was Edward Leung, a 25-year-old rising star who had won more than 66,000 votes in a previous by-election, making him the favorite in the general election. 

Like all prospective candidates that year, Leung was required to sign an official form—never before required—that called Hong Kong an “inalienable part of the People’s Republic of China.” 

The election officer doubted Leung’s sincerity, citing his posts on Facebook promoting self-rule, and disqualified him. 

Two other candidates from another pro-independence party, Baggio Leung and Yau Wei-ching, were permitted to run. 

But after they insulted China during the swearing-in ceremony, a judge barred them from taking their seats.
As the independence movement grew, and more young people identified themselves as Hong Kongers rather than Chinese, according to polls taken by the University of Hong Kong’s Public Opinion Program, Beijing took note. 

On a visit to Hong Kong on July 1, 2017, marking the 20th anniversary of the handover, Xi Jinping ordered the city to hew to the nation’s interests. 

“Any attempt to endanger China’s sovereignty and security, challenge the power of the central government … or use Hong Kong to carry out infiltration and sabotage activities against the mainland is an act that crosses the red line, and is absolutely impermissible,” he said.
Not long after, a Hong Kong judge expelled four more pro-democracy lawmakers from office on the pretense that the oaths they had sworn were insincere. 

In almost every case, the disqualified candidates were under 40. 

All had been harsh critics of Beijing. 

The following year, the government for the first time banned a political group, the Hong Kong National Party, whose central tenet was to work toward Hong Kong’s independence.
The campaign against young political activists continued in the courts. 

Since 2016, judges have convicted dozens of young people for protesting, rioting, and causing disorder. 

Justices on the Court of Final Appeals, Hong Kong’s highest court, ruled that any protest that results in injuries would not be considered an act of civil disobedience but, rather, a violent gathering whose organizers could be subject to prosecution. 

Edward Leung, the thwarted legislative nominee, was convicted in 2018 of rioting and hitting a police officer. 

He was sentenced to six years in a maximum-security prison. 

What seemed like a routine prosecution to discourage street brawls had morphed into a war on the next generation of leaders.

BACK TO THE STREETS
The pall of those depressing summers of 2017 and 2018 lasted well into this year. 

Most young people stopped attending large civic events. 

The student unions at several universities, long catalysts for local and anti-Beijing-related activism, couldn’t form cabinets because so few people were willing to lead. 

Many activists involved in previous campaigns worried that they might be arrested; some chose to enroll in graduate school overseas. 

Two of Leung’s party colleagues were granted refugee status in Germany, likely the first time that Hong Kong residents had ever been granted protection from their own government.
In this fragile, feeble moment for the pro-democracy movement, Lam pushed the rendition bill. 

A quick, clean vote of approval would signal to Xi that she had Hong Kong under control. 

When the business sector objected to the bill’s lack of human rights guarantees and long list of offenses, Lam tweaked the language and promised that only people accused of serious crimes would be extradited. 

Passage looked all but certain.
Then something unexpected happened. 

After a group of lawyers launched a campaign to delay the bill, the Internet suddenly blossomed with hundreds of online petitions. 

Everyone from alumni associations to mothers’ groups demanded that the bill be stopped. 

All at once, young people were engaged again. 

Political parties led by 20-somethings posted graphics explaining why the extradition law could be dangerous. 

Activists shared details about marches, tips on protective gear, and even hand gestures for communicating during standoffs with police. 

Leung’s former party, Hong Kong Indigenous, published an online booklet with tips in case of arrest.
Once the protests began in April, Hong Kong police seemed to focus primarily on stopping the city’s youngest strikers. 

After a mass march on June 9, officers singled out young people to search them for masks, goggles, and knives. 

The night before the June 12 protest at the legislature, police charged the administrator of a Telegram chat group with 20,000 members with conspiracy to cause a public nuisance. 

“I never thought that just speaking on the internet, just sharing information, could be regarded as a speech crime,” the channel’s 22-year-old administrator, Ivan Ip, told The New York Times.
Democracy advocates in Hong Kong have long despised the Beijing government. 

But Lam and her administration have ensured that many residents now hate the city government as well. 

Since her halfhearted apology, young people have coalesced around four key demands: formally withdraw the extradition bill; retract the “riot” designation of the June 12 protest, which opened the door to more serious criminal prosecutions; release and drop all charges against those who were arrested; and establish an independent inquiry to probe the excessive force by police on June 12. 

A fifth demand is that Lam step down.
So far, all five demands remain unmet. 

While protesters have done their best to keep the pressure on the government, many quietly admit that they are grasping for ways to sustain the momentum. 

Without a clear leader, and with crowds destined to shrink, many worry that this protest movement could fizzle like many previous ones. 

The young people who continue to stage sudden, short-term occupations of government buildings are taking a significant risk. 

The fewer the protesters are in number, the more vulnerable they are to criminal prosecution. 

And yet the most energized among them don’t plan to back down. 

“Many of us are thinking that continuing the protest in Hong Kong will create a certain level of pressure on the Chinese government,” said Simon, the undergraduate. 

“If you’re not going to respond to us, we’ll try to stop the government from working.”