It has been two weeks since Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam withdrew the extradition bill that ignited mass protests in the city this past summer, but conversations about the future of the movement continue to be had.
Nearly 150 students attended a panel about the Hong Kong protests and the impact of social media on the movement during an event hosted by the U.S.-China Institute Tuesday. The panel, which was moderated by Clayton Dube, executive director of the institute, was hosted in collaboration with two Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism courses: Media and Society and Contours of Change in Media and Communication.
During the event, panelists examined the issues that ignited the protests in Hong Kong that began in June, specifically referencing Chief Executive Carrie Lam’s now-abandoned decision to allow extradition to mainland China. Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China with an independent government, judicial and economic system. Citizens of Hong Kong feared the bill would compromise the region’s judicial independence and autonomy and decided to protest the Lam and the Chinese government.
Panelists invited to the event represented various industries and interests, including higher education, think tanks and media organizations. The wide-ranging panel included Robert Koepp, director at the Corporate Network in Hong Kong; Fiona Ng, senior producer at AirTalk; Francis Lee, a professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong; and Samson Yuen, assistant professor of political science at Lingnan University.
Dube introduced the discussion by reflecting on Hong Kong’s tumultuous summer of protest and how the movements on the island came to be. He said that while attention has always been on the unique region, this summer has brought new issues to light.
“There's precedent and each one of these protests seems to be getting larger in size,” Dube said. ”And so when we look at 2019, our speakers today are going to take you through some of the timeline and they'll show the evolution of opinion over the last several months.”
Dube stressed the importance of young people in the movement and the shift toward an educated resistance.
“I want to emphasize the role of young people. Many of those demonstrating were not alive at the time in 1997 when Hong Kong was returned to the control of Beijing,” he said. “Their consciousness is different. This is the best educated generation ever. They have expectations. They know how to express themselves. They are very skilled users of media, managing the images put forward, managing the narrative and so there’s a lot for us to talk about.”
Fiona Ng, a former producer for Marketplace, discussed the unique role of the media in the Hong Kong protests. She said that while protests have been widely covered in traditional media, alternative sources and social media platforms such as Telegram and WhatsApp and, have brought the movement into the international spotlight.
“Telegram is a user app, kind of like WhatsApp, [and] a lot of protesters are using it to disseminate information and to receive information,” Ng said. “Protesters are kind of controlling the narrative of this movement.”
However, Samson Yuen criticized the media for exaggerating the violence that is portrayed on TV. He believes that while the protests have dominated the political dialogue, life in Hong Kong goes on.
“I think everyday life is still quite normal,” Yuen said. “I don't think there's a lot of disruption going on in Hong Kong, but weekends would be a little bit more problematic. Of course [in] the media, the violent scenes are always being repeated.”
During the panel, speakers diverged on a common understanding of what started the protests. While most of the panel argued that the protest arose mainly Lam’s extradition bill, Koepp, a former professor at the Marshall School of Business, argued that many protesters are also dissatisfied with the lack of economic mobility.
Yuen disagreed with Koepps stance, emphasizing the original purposes of past anti-China movements in Hong Kong.
“I think if you look at the history of social movements in Hong Kong, none of them [are] really about the economy — most of them are about politics,” Yuen said. “Even back in 2003, when the economy was very bad, the protest was primarily motivated by national security legislation.”
After the event, students in the audience were given the opportunity to ask the panelists questions.
Natassja Tidball, a junior majoring in sociology, asked the speakers about why political protests in the U.S., such as the March for Our Lives and the Women’s March, lacked disruptive forms of action similar to Hong Kong. Tidball also asked the panelists about why acts of civil disobedience were used in the protests.
Chinese University of Hong Kong professor Francis Lee answered by discussing the slow evolution of large-scale protests in Hong Kong over the past 15 to 20 years. He said that while the shift toward radicalization and more disruptive forms of disobedience against the mainland government seems to have developed quickly, this trend has been progressing for a while.
“Five years ago, during the Umbrella movement, the main organizers of the Umbrella movement also placed a fairly heavy emphasis on peacefulness and not violence,” Lee said. ”So the idea is that over time more and more people realize that the Hong Kong government or the Chinese government simply do not listen to peaceful protests — so then, what else can you do? It seems like the only option is to escalate the action.”
Towards the end of the two-hour panel, one question remained unanswered — how will this state of unrest come to an end? And, what’s going to happen next in Hong Kong?
Despite the panelists not having clear answers to these questions, Ng left attendees with a few parting words.
“No matter how it ends, no matter what happens, I think something has already been accomplished,” Ng said. “It is a rejuvenation of the Hong Kong identity; it is something that’s not only happening in the city but happening everywhere in the world, including the diaspora and people like me.”