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Burning Rage: Hong Kong's Defining Battle

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Hong Kong is burning, and every attempt by the government to blow it down merely fanned its flames.

From the ashes of their past demonstrations, millions of Hong Kongers are now enkindling a creative and agile style of resistance. Protesters clad in charcoal-black shirts besieged the Hong Kong International Airport, yelling “Ga yau!” which is Cantonese for “add fuel.” Students at the Space Museum’s planetarium pretended to set the dome on fire with laser pens, which the police called an “offensive weapon.” On the outer wall of the Legislative Council (Legco), Hong Kong’s parliament center, hung a red flag that read, “If we burn, you burn with us”.

Protest tools took a creative turn, with placards, traffic cones, suitcases, and umbrellas used to evade police arrest and high-tech surveillance. Present, too, were colonial emblems of their British-ruled day -- carried by some groups harbouring nostalgia induced by an increasingly repressive political climate.

What sparked off these protests was the proposal of a bill that would have allowed suspects in Hong Kong to be detained and prosecuted in China. The locals deemed this consistent with China’s efforts to deface their autonomy, along with the barring of pro-democracy politicians from parliamentary elections and the arrests of journalists and protest leaders.

Still, Hong Kongers know that theirs is not a mere local struggle. The world watches with a sheer understanding that their defeat to authoritarianism would set a worrisome precedent for freedom.

Now, they are exhausting all opportunities to light up the city — with the extradition bill as their final kindling to set a conflagration before dusk once again sets in.

From Embers to Wildfire

Hong Kong has seen protest after protest flare up and simmer down.

The 79-day Umbrella Movement made massive headlines in 2014 for its sustained protest culture. Though the people’s demand for a democratic selection of their chief executive fell on deaf ears, it nonetheless proved to many that sit-in protests alone were insufficient. As the movement dragged on its final days, Hong Kongers stuck post-it notes on the walls along Harcourt Road, saying “We’ll be back.”

The million turnout in the ongoing anti-extradition bill mobilizations is the very fulfillment of that promise, with pro-democracy legislators crying out in front of the Legco: “We are back.” This time, demonstrations are carried out in sporadic flash-mob fashion.

A phalanx of protesters filled downtown parks and inched past business districts. Bus and train drivers blocked main roads. Airline workers barricaded the arrival hall. Healthcare staff staged sit-ins during lunch breaks. Youngsters stood on the front lines, taking no orders from centralized leaderships. With no key figures, the police cannot incarcerate anyone to impede the protests.

The protesters’ efforts to “play with fire will only backfire,” warned the Chinese government. Yang Guang, the state council spokesperson, declared the unrest as showing “first signs of terrorism.” Police in full riot gear fired at point-blank range canisters of tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters. Triads hit train stations, leaving hundreds of civilians bloody and beaten.

But the Hong Kongers’ message was stark, written in red ink, raised high above the sea of slogans: “Give us liberty or give us death.” 

Burning Bridges

These choices leave no room for any more concessions. Because, for centuries, Hong Kong has tired of being caught in the middle of the geopolitical crossfire between two imperial powers, Britain and China.

The 156-year British rule benefited Hong Kong through measures ranging from erecting infrastructure to the latter’s entrenchment as the Asian financial citadel in the 1990s. With these rewards, however, came a track record of violence employed to stifle dissent, like the 1967 leftist riots, and a wealth gap that kept locals at the economic bottom.

To appease the trade war between the two, Britain ceded Hong Kong to China in 1997 on the condition that the former colony would be guaranteed 50 years of effective self-rule. With 28 years still left before the deadline, Beijing is tightening dominion over the region’s autonomy, all the more obscuring the legitimacy of the “one country, two systems” policy.

Yet China has now evolved into an economic behemoth, with its Belt and Road Initiative seeking to expand infrastructure development and transnational investments in 152 countries, and a gross domestic product (GDP) more than 30 times greater than Hong Kong’s in 2018. Its hold over Hong Kong has grown less of an economic incentive and more of a political statement in its pursuit of global dominance.

Meanwhile, the West, which scholars banner as the bastion of democracy, has showed no intent to ease Hong Kong’s distress save a few idle statements and vague legislation. International coverage of the protests highlight the struggle against Chinese intervention, without acknowledging Hong Kong’s role as a combat zone between the neoliberal globalization of the West and the authoritarian capitalism of China.

Despite its ripple effect across the globe, Hong Kongers are indeed waging this battle in isolation. As the popular saying “Only Hong Kongers can save Hong Kong” goes, the 7 million locals sense the exigency to be at the forefront of saving their own.

Forged in Fire

It is no longer an issue of how the Hong Kongers will win, but what strides they will take to confront the upcoming provocations. For while the majority of the population remains united in their condemnation of China’s rule, even now contradictions among the heterogeneous pool of protesters have yet to be reconciled with their fragmented vision of self-determination.


Their century-long colonial experience might have rid them of any coherent alternative to the prevailing free-market framework, yet the overdue realization of democracy hinges not on retrenchment of servitude but on radical imaginations of liberty.

This means daring to assert for all sectors the rights they have long been deprived of: universal suffrage, equitable land, wage equality, and affordable housing, among others. These demands remain stark and resonate with not just Hong Kong but also other countries embroiled in socioeconomic inequities. A more pivotal stand against such a global order can only be staked in the long term once the protest movement begins to probe its prospects and principles and consolidate an anti-hegemonic front alongside similarly exploited peoples overseas.

If the fire continues to catch, Hong Kong may either burst into a wildfire or subdue into smolders. Even so, it will take more than just a headwind of any imperial power to extinguish its embers. In all this blaze, Hong Kong might just come out forged anew.