Two months of sit-ins in Hong Kong ended in December 2014, but the discontent that motivated the protests is far from gone. In some ways, in fact, things have gotten worse. While the “Occupy Protests” focused their attention on politics, recent activism has crossed the line into full-blown anti-mainlander sentiment.
Reuters reports on a recent protest by a group of roughly 100 activists against mainland tourists. The protesters targeted New Town Plaza, a shopping mall frequented by mainland Chinese, armed with banners telling the “locusts” and “barbarians” (disparaging term for mainland Chinese) to leave. “Go back to China! We don’t want you!” protesters shouted at shoppers presumed to be from the mainland. Hong Kong police used pepper spray and arrested over a dozen protesters.
Anti-mainlander protests have hit especially hard at Hong Kong universities, where mainland students make up over 11 percent of the total student population. When mainland student Lushan Ye tried to run for a position in the University of Hong Kong’s Students’ Union, it sparked a furious backlash when a video outed her as a former member of China’s Communist Youth League. Ye herself protested that she had come to Hong Kong “because I admire the freedom and democracy” but the damage was done: Ye and her cabinet (students run as groups for the election) were trounced in the election after opponents painted her an as agent of Beijing.
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