Hong Kong Seeks Democracy in China’s Shadow

They call it the Umbrella Revolution. On the night of Sept. 28, riot police fired tear gas at pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong. The mostly student crowd was clad in little more than T-shirts and shorts, protected by dollar-store ponchos and swimming goggles wrapped in cellophane. Footage from the scene showed people using umbrellas as shields as they inched through the smoke.

Outraged by the violence and frustrated by what they see as Beijing’s creeping control of the semiautonomous territory, Hong Kong’s citizens flocked to join them. Tens of thousands now occupy the very heart of the city, from the financial district on Hong Kong Island to key intersections across the storied harbor in Kowloon. Participants are calling for the resignation of the city’s chief executive, Leung Chun-ying, and for full democracy. The demonstrations follow the announcement by Beijing in late August that when Hong Kong’s residents vote for a new leader in 2017, their choices will be restricted to candidates vetted by the mainland government.

Although by Oct. 1 there was still a heavy police presence, the protests had become remarkably peaceful, even polite. High school students did homework on the pavement. Business owners donated food. Volunteers helped ferry basic necessities to the front. “Do you need a mask?” they asked. “We have biscuits!”

But it wasn’t clear how long the peace would hold. In a city that each year marks the anniversary of the 1989 crackdown in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, people are all too aware of the worst-case scenario: brutal suppression by the Chinese government. Will Beijing send the army to crush the rally, they wonder? Or might the government give way to get people off the streets? The Chinese Communist Party, which prizes stability above all else, is no doubt weighing its options. If this were mainland China, where the Internet is censored and the media tightly controlled, they could stop news from spreading and purge provocative images from the web. Indeed, as the demonstrations gained strength, censors in China blocked Instagram and an ever growing list of terms like Hong Kong police and umbrella.

But this is Hong Kong, which has remained a much more open place ever since it was handed over to China by its former colonial masters in Britain in 1997. The press remains relatively free, the Internet uncensored. The city’s camera-wielding crowds are documenting every move. They feel that this is their moment–and their story to tell.