Hong Kong Elections: Umbrella Protest Parties Win

In late 2014, despite the 1997 promise of local autonomy (“One Country, Two Systems”), China’s ruling party proposed new restrictive measures for Hong Kong elections. Hong Kong responded with 80 days of street demonstrations. Young protesters carried umbrellas to shield themselves from police pepper spray, and the movement became known as the Umbrella Revolution.

While authorities suppressed the pro-democracy street protests, the movement for local self-government continued. Last week, a record voter turnout elected six leaders of the Umbrella Movement to the Legislative Council of Hong Kong and Macau. The next Hong Kong Chief Executive election is scheduled for March 26, 2017.

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Umbrella Revolution: Folded

When Hong Kong’s protest for self-rule began in September, police responded with pepper spray and tear gas, and demonstrators sheltered behind umbrellas. The “Umbrella Revolution” ended this week as protest leaders surrendered to police and told their comrades to go home. Hong Kong police cleared protest barricades and tent sites, some protesters are in jail, and movement spokesman Joshua Wong is on a hunger strike. Everyone in HK is asking “What’s next?” and they don’t mean the winter monsoon cold snap.

The Umbrella Revolution

Student protesters in Hong Kong’s Central District have been protecting themselves with umbrellas and plastic sheets. It’s raining tear gas and pepper spray.

Hong Kong was returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997 with the promise of “One Country, Two Systems,” a pledge that HK citizens could choose their own leaders by 2017. Beijing has reneged on this, hence the pro-democracy protests and the umbrellas. But don’t try to email, text, post, or tweet the word “umbrella” in the city today or you’ll get in trouble with Chinese authorities.

Some Hong Kong protesters put down their umbrellas to meet police with the “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” gesture they learned from Ferguson’s protesters, but they wear surgical masks and goggles because it doesn’t stop the pepper spray.