China watches as the dreams of Hong Kong's Umbrella protesters shatter

On September 26, 2014, a small group of students, led by 17-year-old Joshua Wong, tried to occupy the government’s offices. The teargas and pepper spray response from a usually upstanding local police force sparked fears around the world of a Tiananmen-style massacre, and brought tens of thousands of young supporters onto the streets.

The disproportionate response by the local authorities to largely peaceful protests, together with embattled Hong Kong Chief Executive C.Y. Leung’s refusal to meet with student groups, fostered much goodwill for the ‘Occupiers’ across a weary society. But after more than a week of occupations and demonstrations, and despite the wide local and global support for what was dubbed the Umbrella Revolution, the protests ran out of steam. Few now are optimistic about Hong Kong’s democratic prospects.

The purging of once powerful security chief Zhou Yongkang in a widespread anti-graft campaign has indicated to many that Xi Jinping, only 18 months into his tenure as China’s President, is already the country’s most powerful leader since Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong. Early on in Mr Xi’s presidency the world was given an indication as to how the Communist Party (CCP) would continue its political development.

What has been referred to as Document Number 9 – a communique circulated by the CCP’s General Office to members – outlined President Xi’s stark opposition to any liberalisation of China’s political structure.

Specifically targeting ‘Western Constitutional Democracy’, ‘Universal Values’ and the ‘Promotion of Civil Society’ as threats to one-party rule, Document Number 9 makes it clear that President Xi’s ideology is fundamentally against the core values of the Umbrella Revolution.

Beijing has demanded that any future Hong Kong chief executive candidate must ‘love the country and love Hong Kong’ and also not oppose the CCP’s one-party rule. This vetting of candidates, when considered as part of China’s wider political development, makes many Hong Kongers believe that the rule of law is under threat. Rule of party trumps rule of law in Mr Xi’s China.

This is not merely a belief held in the radical fringes of Hong Kong society, but also in the mainstream. In June 2014 around 1,800 lawyers marched through Hong Kong wearing black. Their message to the authorities in Beijing was that they will not compromise on Hong Kong’s rule of law and that they oppose Beijing’s increased meddling.

The 2014 protests have been characterised by the huge number of young Hong Kongers who have come out to protest. The pro-democracy movement has seen a dramatic change of guard, from a generation whose formative political years were in the twilight years of British colonial rule, to one whose political and social education has been entirely framed by ‘One Country, Two Systems’.

Take as an example Joshua Wong, the convenor of prominent student group Scholarism, whose arrest by local authorities served as a cause celebre for the protesters. Mr Wong is 17 years old; he was less than a year old when Hong Kong returned to Chinese sovereignty. Like his contemporaries, he has no first-hand memory of the fact Britain offered only limited democracy to Hong Kong in the dying years of its rule, or the incredible wealth afforded to the city by closer ties with China in the 1980s and 1990s.

Many of the protesters have grown up in a political environment where Beijing is seen as the cause of many of Hong Kong’s problems, and where mainlanders are criticised for causing a housing bubble that means many now live with their parents well into their 20s. Persistent cultural legacies from the British era such as the city’s education system, as well as Western influences stemming from the tide of globalisation, mean these youngsters see themselves as very different from their mainland counterparts and more at home in London and New York than Shanghai or Beijing.

While the pursuit of universal suffrage is the core motivation for most young protesters, socio-economic factors have also played into the dissatisfaction many feel with their government and towards closer ties with the mainland.

They see Hong Kong as a city of economic opportunity. Its rule of law affords security to investors, while loose ties with the mainland allow China’s high levels of growth to be tapped. This has been one of the foundations for those who argue for closer ties with Beijing. The response of the city’s economic tycoons to the growing unrest – to fly to Beijing and meet with the CCP leadership – underlines what the rich fear they have to lose.

It is this divergence of interests that has weakened the protest movement. In contrast to their elders, the city’s youth feel the economic benefits of closer ties with the mainland will not necessarily be extended to them, and their prospects for the future are not as strong as they once were.

The city’s Gini coefficient, the statistical measure of economic equality, is one of the most unequal in the developed world. A recent study has shown that Hong Kong is second only to London as the most expensive place to live and work.

The rising cost of living, combined with growing youth unemployment, meant that in 2012 the poverty rate for 15-24 year olds was 17.7 per cent. What is perhaps most telling with regard to the 2014 protests is that nearly 85 per cent of young people believe the situation will get worse in the next decade.

While the older generations experienced a huge boom in the 1980s and 1990s as a result of close ties with China’s rapidly expanding economy, the current youth generation has far less cause to be optimistic. Rising social inequality means that whatever the economic benefits of closer ties with the mainland, which the business community believes is worth a trade-off for political freedoms, the youth are less inclined to accept.