INTERVIEW: Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement was doomed to fail

A decade after thousands of young people occupied downtown Hong Kong in pursuit of fully democratic elections, former student leader Nathan Law believes the movement never had a chance, faced as it was with the political ambitions of recently ascended Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

A decade after thousands of young people occupied downtown Hong Kong in pursuit of fully democratic elections, former student leader Nathan Law believes the movement never had a chance, faced as it was with the political ambitions of recently ascended Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Law, who went on to become the youngest-ever elected member of the city's Legislative Council before the rules were rewritten to exclude opposition candidates, said the movement, which is sometimes blamed for inciting Beijing's ire, wasn't the trigger for the ruling Chinese Communist Party's clampdown on the city's promised freedoms.

"China's policy changed at the national level," Law told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview. "In the past, they had felt that they were a fairly low-key and quietly rising power on the international stage."

But when General Secretary Xi Jinping took power in 2012, things changed, he said.

"When Xi Jinping came to power, it was clear that he had far greater ambitions for totalitarian rule and for the Chinese Communist Party's role in the international arena," Law said. "So there was very little incentive to preserve democracy, diversity, civil society or freedom in Hong Kong."

10 years ago, Law was part of the Sept. 26, 2014 storming of Civic Square, the protest that kicked off the 79-day Occupy Central movement.

Power gap

When the students went on strike and crowds supporting the protesters refused to leave, the police fired the first tear gas. The protesters used their umbrellas to protect themselves, and the Umbrella Movement was born.

Even then, Law and fellow student leaders Joshua Wong, Alex Chow, Agnes Chow and Lester Shum knew very well what they were up against.

"I don't think we were naïve at the time," Law said. "We were very clear right from the start just how huge the power gap between the Chinese Communist Party and the people of Hong Kong was."

"The fact that young people led this movement that everyone had been waiting for wasn't a key factor in the outcome," he said. "There wasn't enough political pressure or international support to force the Chinese Communist Party to give in."

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The Hong Kong that gave birth to the Umbrella Movement was a very different place, where the pro-democracy camp held a significant proportion of seats in the Legislative Council and at district level, where mass popular demonstrations were a common feature of the city's political life, and where hundreds of thousands still gathered annually to mourn those who died in the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, led by outspoken political activists and lawmakers, most of whom are now behind bars.

"Hong Kong back then was totally different, looking back," Law said. "One of the most vivid memories I had of the Umbrella Movement is that the toilets in the occupation camp in Admiralty were cleaner than the one in my home."

‘Helpless in the face of history’

"Everyone put so much thought into that movement -- it was a kind of utopia that showed us the beauty of human nature," Law said. "This was the political situation that we longed for, a world in which we could give unconditionally to those around us."

"The degree of strength and hope that it brought out in people was unmatched by any political movement since."

But there was a huge price to pay for that idealism, both in the wake of the Occupy Central movement, and the 2019 protests and subsequent crackdown under two draconian security laws.

"A lot of students were imprisoned and suppressed because they took part in political movements," Law said. "They were helpless in the face of history, because in a closed system, student movements aren't tolerated, and youthful idealism is stifled."

Nonetheless, Hong Kong's tradition of mass protest did inspire others to resist authoritarian rule elsewhere, not least in Thailand in 2020, he added.

Now, with so many comrades behind bars for daring to resist the will of Beijing, Law's response is similar to that of nearly every other activist now fighting from exile for the restoration of the city's freedoms.

"People in prison don't want us all to be trapped in a loop of negative emotion the whole time because of their situation," he said. "They want us to do our part."

Translated by Luisetta Mudie.