Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests were a positive failure. The 75-day occupation which ended on Dec. 11 failed to achieve the hoped-for democratic reforms. But the student-led movement succeeded in awakening a generation to the possibilities of direct political action. The net result: Hong Kong’s long-term future has become a lot harder to predict.
On the face of it, the campaign to make leadership elections in the former British colony more democratic is no further along than it was when the “Umbrella Movement” got going at the end of September. China may make some minor concessions to its plan of allowing citizens to choose between two or three carefully vetted candidates. But even then Hong Kong will remain a long way from the type of democracy the protesters demanded.
Yet the impact of the activists will last much longer than the city-centre campsites they created. The movement polarised Hong Kong’s politics, squeezing moderate voices. It also exposed deep unhappiness with rising economic inequality and high property prices. Devising policies to address that dissatisfaction will determine whether Hong Kong’s discredited government is able to regain some legitimacy.
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