30 Sep 2014

Hong Kong’s protesters are digging in for the long haul

I lived in Hong Kong in the 90s when this effervescent metropolis with an impossible climate and vertiginous topography was handed from one dead empire to an emerging one.

There was much discussion at the time whether this place that famously worships mammon also had a political spine. I always thought it did. The local press could be as robust and irreverent as anything in America or Europe.

Ever since Tiananmen Square there has also always been a tradition of peaceful protest here. But what I am witnessing on the streets now is different in scale, mood and stakes for Beijing. The government of Xi Jin Ping is more nationalistic than its predecessor and in no mood for reform. I can’t imagine them giving in to the “forces of chaos” as they keep denouncing the protests here.

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But nor can I imagine those forces, peaceful, patient and passionate about their rights from just melting away. What has amassed outside our hotel in the depths of the neon and marble canyon that is central commercial Hong Kong is a civic movement of students, families, accountants and shop-keepers.

This is Maidan at 35 degrees and 98 percent humidity. There is the same sense of quiet determination and organisation. They are digging in for the long haul. The global tussle between the forces of self-sufficiency and self-determination has found another stage. Hong Kong is the canary in China’s mine. Beijing isn’t sure whether to let it fly or smother it.

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