The protest camps have been cleared. But Hong Kong’s Occupy movement has laid bare the struggle for space that rages across the city.
The death knell for Hong Kong’s Umbrella Revolution was sounded even as the movement entered December. The final days saw Beijing play its hand well, through the careful application of minimal force and strategic patience.
The movement could benefit from encouraging splits within the seemingly unified voice of the elite, bound to have its internal conflicts. Then there are new challenges and new nonviolent opportunities, planned and unplanned.
Protest organizers and Beijing are both losing control of the situation in Hong Kong. What compromises can each side make in order to resolve the chaos? A contribution to the openGlobalRights debate on Emerging Powers and Human Rights.
Hong Kong Democracy Now is a voluntary working group translating videos and articles to support international media coverage of Hong Kong’s civil disobedience movement. They are maintaining an updated list of verified sources detailing police brutality.
The voice of the labour movement has been ignored in the international media coverage of Hong Kong’s Occupy protest. Trade unions have taken to the street not only in the name of universal suffrage, but for the sake of social justice.
Two professors in Hong Kong interview fellow academics, student activists and graduate students from mainland China in order to draw out Hong Kong’s history in relation to globalising forms of political expression. Colonial history, neoliberal urban governance, and Chinese authoritarianism all bea
Beijing knows that the struggle for democracy in Hong Kong is not just about the future of the former British colony: the party monopoly on the mainland is ultimately at issue.
Could mainland China not seek eventual convergence towards a democratic system, respectful of the full gamut of human rights? That actually is what the happenings in Hong Kong now are about.
