Joshua Wong, his Umbrella, and the Hong Kong Question

Back in the days of colonial fervor, the Founding Fathers of the United States were fed up -- their anger towards the injustices of the British Monarchy were attributable to the revolutionary actions they took and encouraged. Today, we see more of the same, but in a place unfamiliar to the men who birthed our nation and who grace the hallowed annals of American history. Currently, we see a fiery and impressive movement coming from the youth of Hong Kong, China's bastion of economic and political prowess. However, if the current movement, known as the Umbrella Revolution or Umbrella Movement, proves to be successful, the political stranglehold that China has on the Special Administrative Region (SAR) will slacken significantly. Back in 1997, when Hong Kong officially came under Chinese rule as part of an agreement with the UK, they promised the Hong Kongers a "high degree of autonomy" for 50 years [1]. It doesn't come as a surprise then that when China's National People's Congress Standing Committee voted just under two months ago to keep Hong Kong's chief executive election from being decided via universal suffrage, unrest followed [2].

The movement began with a student named Joshua Wong who initiated protests in central Hong Kong after the news broke that there would be a 1,200 person committee to choose candidates that Hong Kongers could then vote on. Mr. Wong has continued to lead protests and has become the de facto leader of the Umbrella Revolution, so named because protesters have emphasized peace in their demonstrations, including holding umbrellas over police-officers' heads to shield them from rain. While the demonstrators have strived for peace, the Chinese government has made large efforts to quash the movement and condemn the protests as an affront to the country and its leaders. Several Chinese policemen were recently arrested for beating a protester, possibly a sign of unrest to come [3].

The perversion of the Hong Kong election for chief executive is a fresh, new stain on a political machine, the Chinese Communist Party, that has relentlessly deterred any efforts for democratization or expansion of civil liberties. Although Hong Kong Basic Law, the constitution of the SAR, explicitly allows for the freedoms of speech and demonstration, the Communist leaders in Beijing would be remiss in its goal of undermining liberty for the sake of pushing its Communist principles

down Chinese citizens' throats if they didn't make efforts to dismantle the protests and then blame "the West" for the unrest. It's a tactic seen used over and over by the Chinese government to avoid blame for anything that would make them seem unjust, corrupt, or incompetent. 

Since the peak of the movement, it has quickly been disassembled but hardly silenced. All of the major protest sites have been cleared out and the protest leaders, including Joshua Wong, have taken to peaceful calls for further meetings with government officials rather than showing dissent via large demonstrations. All considered, it would appear that the Chinese government and Hong Kong police have largely quashed the revolution, though it will likely be remembered in history as a series of unsuccessful anti-government protests. It's a sad -- and dangerous -- day when a government more or less promises autonomy and instead succumbs to cowardice and the repeal of conviction.

China seeks dominance and won't budge on issues that threaten their government's image. The Chinese people of Hong Kong and beyond suffer by their government and democracy in principle suffers by their victory.

Sources:

1. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/hk.html
2. http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/31/world/asia/hong-kong-elections/
3. http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/27/world/asia/hong-kong-protests-mong-kok/index.html
4. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/in_depth/china_politics/government/html/1.stm
5. http://www.basiclaw.gov.hk/en/basiclawtext/chapter_3.html