Ten years ago, protesters went on strike in several busy areas of Hong Kong in what came to be known as the Umbrella Movement. These protestors, mostly youngsters and students, camped out day and night in the streets without neglecting their daily routines, such as doing school homework or reading books from the ‘street library’ set up by participants.
“It was interesting and inspiring, very much worth remembering,” says Jeffrey Wasserstrom, an American historian and Chancellor’s Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine, who was in Hong Kong at the time and witnessed the protests.
Protests began on 28 September 2014 and ended 79 days later when authorities, backed by court orders, cleared the demonstration sites. Most protesters left peacefully after it became clear their demands would not be immediately met. The movement failed to secure its primary goal of universal suffrage, as the Chinese government in Beijing maintained its restrictions on candidate nominations for the city’s top leadership position of chief executive.
The widespread disillusionment after the failure of the Umbrella Movement inspired a new wave of political activism, including the rise of localist movements advocating for greater autonomy or independence. Some movement leaders entered politics and influenced subsequent elections, while tensions with Beijing continued to escalate, culminating in stricter crackdowns and the imposition of the National Security Law in 2020.
Despite its limited immediate success, the Umbrella Movement galvanised a generation of activists and left a lasting impact on Hong Kong’s political landscape.
“History shows us that some movements lead to dead ends, but then in a longer perspective they can be seen as helping pave the way for other things. It’s important to not assume that something is totally hopeless, but also not to underestimate the forces blocking that kind of progress,” he says.
“There are reasons why people keep a sort of spirit of resistance alive, personally or in the diaspora, but it’s a very bleak moment for activities within the city itself.”
The Umbrella Movement was the second-biggest sustained social movement in any part of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since 1989. The biggest was the one it inspired in 2019.
“So Hong Kong has had the two largest sustained social movements in the PRC in the last decades,” he says.
Professor Wasserstrom, who was present at the Umbrella Movement protests in Central and Mong Kok, remembers how protesters integrated aspects of daily life into the demonstrations. He observed study areas for students and a people’s library filled with readings on democratic theory and philosophy. “It was like an extension of university life,” he says. “They were simply trying to imagine a better version of their daily lives.”
He describes these scenes as “utopian” and “smart”, as they allowed protesters to continue attending the demonstrations without falling behind in other areas of their lives.
Due to the nature of the Hong Kong protests, which took place in an era of fast-flowing global information and symbolism, Wasserstrom says the movement was “incredibly cosmopolitan” and infused with popular culture. The protest songs were a mix of local Cantonese and foreign languages, and even included songs from the musical, Les Misérables.
“I love things like the Lennon Walls,” he said, referring to the idea borrowed from the wall in Prague, which was adapted in Hong Kong into a display of messages of support hand-written on Post-it notes. “It was very creative, with individualistic drawings on some of the notes, and made a kind of kaleidoscope,” he says.
While public messaging such as this is now prohibited in Hong Kong, as it is viewed by the authorities as a threat to national security, Wasserstrom says the movement still holds influence today. The Umbrella Movement had a significant impact on how people think about their city and politics, and paved the way for the 2019 protests.
In 2020, the first national security law was proposed in Hong Kong, restricting freedom of speech, assembly, strikes, and other rights. John Lee, the city’s chief executive, stated that the law created opportunities for economic growth and reinforced the city’s status as a global financial hub, helping the region shift from “stability to prosperity”.
Wasserstrom believes that the Hong Kong government succeeded in the short term by limiting public action through enforcing the national security law, but that there are long-term implications.
“I think they’re trying very hard to do things slowly, and that’s why sometimes they do very gradual things,” he says. “It’s too soon to tell how much they’ve been able to pull that off, but I think it has tarnished the city’s reputation.”
He believes that in Hong Kong, as in Xinjiang and Mongolia, the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, is trying to enforce a form of cultural conformity across the People’s Republic of China. While these regions have different approaches to political and social control, under Xi, there is a common tendency to allow less local variation and to view local identities and divergent cultural approaches with suspicion.
“That’s a really problematic way for the country to be moving. It stymies a lot of the space for creativity and development,” says Wasserstrom. “Even if we don’t see organised protests right now, I think a lot of discontent related to this, these moves to homogenise culture and politics, in the long run will undermine the country’s ability to move forward.”
In 2023 Wasserstrom was in London, where he observed a Hong Kong protest and attended the Tiananmen vigil at Trafalgar Square with Hong Kong activists and the diaspora. He sees this ongoing protest activity outside Hong Kong as similar to anti-colonial movements, in which the struggle largely takes place outside the colonised territory.
It is the diaspora that plays an important role in raising global awareness about what is happening in Hong Kong and in maintaining a sense of cultural identity for people with an attachment to the city, , he says, even if they can no longer be there.
*This article reflects the interviewee’s perspectives, which do not represent the stance of The Hong Konger.
