A standoff at one of Hong Kong’s major universities has come to an end, but don’t expect an end to the broader protest movement enveloping the former British colony.
Yes, it’s pretty clear that Hong Kong police have won at least a tactical victory by seizing protesters encamped at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Many of the protesters now find themselves in handcuffs, but those protesters who can do so will return to the streets once they are released. Expect another weekend of rage.
The key here is that both China and Hong Kong’s freedom movement see this as an existential struggle.
While Beijing is increasingly likely to use lethal force against the protesters, Hongkongers know that giving up now would be to lose their increasingly limited freedom. Recall that these protests began with a now aborted Chinese effort to extradite Hongkongers to the mainland. But those taking to the streets realize that was just one in a long line of Beijing’s increasing efforts to take away their human rights. All of these Chinese efforts breach the Sino-British accord, which commits Beijing to respecting Hong Kong’s separate legal and political system until at least 2047. But Beijing doesn’t care. As with its intellectual property theft, oceanic theft, and religious freedom theft, it seeks the party’s triumph over all things.
Hongkongers are correspondingly correct to view this struggle through a brutally existential prism. They will not give in, because to do so would surely mean the end to their freedoms and their way of life until now.