A chill has gripped Hong Kong. The Occupy Central movement, which advocated for open nomination rights in the 2017 election for chief executive, the city’s head of government, is entering its third month, and what is likely to be its final phase. After more than 60 days of sleeping in the streets and battling police batons, protesters are almost out of moves, while the powers that be in Beijing have not yielded one inch to demands that they allow more open elections in the Chinese territory. Hong Kong will probably emerge from the movement battered — its government scorned, its police mistrusted, its social fabric torn. Even for Leung Chun-ying, Hong Kong’s chief executive and the protesters’ staunchest foe, the end of occupation will likely be a Pyrrhic victory. The central government in Beijing, on the other hand, is likely to be pleased with the turn of events. It has successfully mobilized its allies in Hong Kong and discredited the movement on the mainland. Ah Yeh, or “Grandpa,” as the central government is known in Hong Kong, has shown that it is firmly in charge.
Although the occupation of two of Hong Kong’s key commercial areas has not ended, the protesters’ tactics increasingly smack of desperation. After more than 1,000 demonstrators heeded the call from the Federation of Students and Scholarism, two main organizers of the protests, to lay siege to the city government headquarters and chief executive’s office on the evening of Nov. 30, police clashed with protesters for hours, leaving many with bloodied foreheads. By the next day, student leaders Alex Chow and Joshua Wong admitted that the siege was a failure and apologized to supporters. Wong, the 18-year-old student leader, then began a hunger strike on Dec. 1 to try to win sympathy (and maybe end his participation in the movement with a soupçon of glory). These tactics are likely too little, too late to save the movement.
Signs of setback are everywhere. Hong Kong’s high court granted an injunction on Dec. 1, filed by a local bus company, to clear most of Admiralty, the busy business area that has been occupied for over 60 days. Police have already cleared an occupation site in the busy shopping district of Mong Kok on Nov. 24, after the court granted a similar injunction.
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