Hong Kong’s recent struggle to force Beijing to honour the promise of democracy and autonomy it made to the territory and its citizens in 1997, when it took over from Britain, is unprecedented in scale and exuberance. The standoff escalated over the weekend, when Occupy Central protesters — “Central” is Hong Kong’s main downtown district — advanced a civil disobedience campaign scheduled for October 1. The Hong Kong police responded with surprising brutality, deploying riot police and tear gas. This appears to have emboldened protesters, who are urging fellow citizens to join up, and the movement seems to have taken on a life of its own.
The confrontation was sparked by the suspicion that China intends to renege on the spirit, if not the letter, of its pledge to preserve Hong Kong’s special status, which includes a “high degree of autonomy” and eventual “universal suffrage”. The island’s next chief executive is due to be elected in 2017, and Beijing has made it abundantly clear that only candidates loyal to the Communist Party of China will be allowed to contest. That would make a mockery of democracy in Hong Kong, bringing the electoral rights of Hong Kongers on par with the mainland, where every adult citizen can vote for local legislators — so long as the party approves.
