Dear All,

This is an early draft of a chapter for a book that I am co-authoring with James Jasper, Luke Elliot, Isaac Jabolus-Carolus, Marc Kagan, Manes Weisskircher, and Anna Zhelnina on social movement gains and losses using the Players and Arena framework. I appreciate you taking the time to read this piece and help me clarify the dynamics involved in Occupy Hong Kong with Love and Peace and Hong Kong’s struggle for democracy.

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An Ivory Refuge in a Storm: Alliance Maintenance in Occupy Hong Kong with Love and Peace from 2013-2014

Introduction

In 2013, Benny Tai Yiu-ting, a law professor at Hong Kong University, wrote an article

to inspire Hong Kongers to engage in civil disobedience in order to gain universal suffrage in the

city’s election for their Chief Executive. As a Special Administrative Region within the People’s

Republic of China and a former British colony, Hong Kong enjoyed greater civil liberties,

greater autonomy of government, and greater suffrage than their “Mainland” counterparts. Yet

even before the handover in 1997, an Election Committee chose the Chief Executive, and pro-

Beijing supporters and business elites dominated this committee. Fong has recently argued that

Hong Kong is close to an electoral authoritarian regime (2016). Citizens had very little choice in

their highest leader. Hong Kong’s constitution, the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special

Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China, was formed in accordance with the

Sino-British Joint Declaration on the Question of Hong Kong, and stated that, ultimately, the

Chief Executive should be elected by “universal suffrage upon the nomination by a broadly

representative nominating committee in accordance with democratic procedures.” The central

government of China had announced in 2007 that the city’s Chief Executive would be elected by

universal suffrage in 2017. Tai sought to ensure that universal suffrage would be genuine by

attempting to both rally and coordinate democratic forces within the city, including political

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parties, student organizations, unions, activist networks, religious organizations and non-

governmental organizations (NGOS).1

Along with Reverend Chu Yiu-ming and Prof. Chan Kinman, Benny Tai launched

Occupy Hong Kong with Love and Peace (OHKLP), an organization dedicated to providing a

forum for different democracy players to work out their differences, come up with a reform

proposal for both the election of the Chief Executive, and coordinate direct action strategies to

pressure the government into accepting their proposal. For nearly a year and a half of

coordinating the majority of democracy players in the struggle against both the local and central

government’s attempt to neutralize the impact of universal suffrage on the city’s political

structure. The team envisioned an occupation of the Central District, the financial heart of Hong

Kong for a few days if the government did not listen to their demands. In the end, Hong Kong

experienced an unprecedented 79-day occupation surrounding their government buildings in

Admiralty, as well as smaller occupations of two other locations, Causeway Bay and Mongkok.

This occupation is commonly referred to as the “Umbrella Movement.” Over million people are

estimated to have participated in the movement over the course of its duration. The movement

has largely been thought to be leaderless.

How did Benny Tai and OHKLP lose control over the other players that made up the

larger pro-democracy compound player? How did OHKLP’s previous efforts facilitate gains

within the Umbrella Movement? It is not unusual for compound players in such a diverse

coalition as OHKLP put together to experience a shift in the hierarchy and relations between

1 For this project, Jessica Mahlbacher conducted 35 interviews with scholars, students, politicians and activists who were either involved in Occupy Central or the Umbrella Movement. In order to gain insight into government and opposition strategies, she used the archives of the South China Morning Post, as well as RTHK, which have extensive interviews and commentary by both Pan-Democrat and Pro-Beijing forces. Mahlbacher also conducted participant observations of two pro-democracy rallies, one was the annual July 1st March and the other was a march protesting the treatment of a Hong Kongese bookseller who was detained in China without trial, in the winter of 2015.

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their sub players. Examining their management of alliances over the course of 2013 and 2014,

however, reveals two dynamics involving sub players that ultimately impact the gains and losses

experienced by compound players, tradeoffs involving audience appeals, and differing sub player

strategies.

This chapter begins with an explanation of two of the major dynamics among sub

players, that impacted gains and losses during Occupy Hong Kong with Love and Peace’s

coordination of pro-democracy players’ activities in 2013 and 2014, trade offs involving

audience appeals and differing sub player strategies. The major compound players and sub

players from both the pro-democracy camp and the pro-Beijing camp will then be introduced.

Finally, the chapter will then examine the rise and fall of OHKLP; focusing specifically on the

planning of the unofficial referendum on political reform they held the summer of 2014, and its

fall out. The referendum offered Hong Kong citizens the chance to vote on how the nomination

of the Chief Executive should be conducted starting in 2017, as well as how the Legislative

Council should handle reform packages from Beijing that did not feature genuine competition,

thereby limiting suffrage. Following a major crisis among pro-democracy players, OHKLP was

able shore up the alliance and achieve high voter turnout in the referendum, only to lose control

over the student groups a short while later.

Interactions Between Sub-players, Alliance Maintenance and Gains and Losses

The complex dance between competing compound players necessitates allies to help

them in their struggle to out maneuver each other and win public support. Yet managing

alliances and one’s popular appeal can be tricky, as more radical elements may want to go farther

than the public is willing to accept. Allies themselves often have disparate short-term goals,

which must also be managed in addition to public appeals. The more allies a compound player

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has, the more likely it is that sub player strategies will contradict one another. This can then

have an affect on the opposing compound player, by changing choices available to moderates.

These dynamics affect the gains and losses within the movement by influencing the level of

aggressive tactics and the overall unity among movement sub players.

Jasper calls the strategic need to appeal to “insiders”, “outsiders” and “potential recruits”

the Janus dilemma, “maintaining team solidarity, in other words, may conflict with pursuing

your team’s external goals” (Jasper 2006, 125). This creates a trade off particularly in terms of

the radical flank of the compound player. Haines demonstrated that the radical flank could affect

on the public’s perception of more moderate members (Haines 1988). The performance of

moderate members for public audiences can impact the way the radical flank interprets and

responds to more moderate sub players as well. While calling for escalation and aggressive

tactics encourages the involvement of more radical sub-players, it can isolate public audiences

and potential recruits. If leaders try to ameliorate the situation and retreat from aggressive

stances, radical sub-players may grow more frustrated, leading to strains within the alliance.

More radical sub players may either push harder for aggressive tactics and goals, or they may

take action separate from the compound player.

Similarly, leaders of compound players often find themselves facing at least two different

audiences in their alliance as part of the extension dilemma (Jasper 2006). Small movements

may feature a more unified internal audience, but may not be able to act as broadly. Being too

aggressive in tactics, or too assertive in one’s goals, can alienate more moderate sub players.

These moderate sub players could potentially choose to work with moderate oppositional forces

instead of the larger compound movement player. Leaders therefore have to carefully balance

radical and moderate sub players.

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Tai and OHKLP’s accommodation of moderate forces drew ire, as it confirmed

suspicions among more radical players that the leadership favored moderate sub players.

OHKLP desired to increase support from the public by both making the occupation a tactic of

last resort and keeping it short and symbolic. This further hindered their control over student

organizations and radical parties. The students and radical parties then increased their aggressive

tactics, leading to massive mobilization in the Umbrella Movement beyond what OHKLP

expected to achieve.

Secondly, the degree to which opposing sub players harmonize their strategy can impact

the hierarchy among sub-players and leaders deciding to retreat from aggressive tactics. Polletta

and Kretschmer highlight the ways in which outside actors, such as the government and the

police influence dynamics between factions (2015). State actors are rarely simple players. They

may themselves face extension dilemmas: the more players they involve in pursuing policy

goals, the more likely it is that their strategies will interfere with one another. This can affect the

choices of movement participants by limiting or expanding the choices of moderate sup-players.

The limitations of choices for moderates in turn affects how much leaders have to offer

moderates to stay in the compound player, rather than try to appeal to moderates in the

opposition camp.

In the case of Hong Kong, the local executive branch, the Central Government, members

of Pro-Beijing political parties, and civil society organizations all sought to quell movement

activity. In some cases, the local and central government’s strategies interfered with each other,

which in turn affected power dynamics within the pro-democracy players. The structure of the

unofficial referendum left moderate sub players in the pro-democracy camp unhappy and willing

to work with moderate government forces in May of 2014. Beijing made hardline statements and

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chose aggressive tactics in June that led to the evaporation of prospects for partnership between

moderate government forces and moderate pro-democracy forces evaporating. Moderates

supported the unofficial referendum and rallied the public to participate in June. The unified

front among pro-democracy forces ensured higher turnout.

Sub Players in the Pro-Democracy and Pro-Beijing Camps in 2013 through September

2014

The sub players involved in the pro-democracy camp during the 2013-2014 phase of the

struggle for universal suffrage in Hong Kong can be divided into four groups. The first group is

Occupy Hong Kong with Peace and Love leaders, Prof. Benny Tai, Reverend Yiu-ming Chu, and

Prof. Kinman Chan, their employees, volunteers, and supporters. Tai had no previous experience

in political organizing, but he had known the other two organizers for years. Reverend Chu was a

veteran of the pro-democracy movement; he was well respected for his work aiding Tiananmen

activists escape to Hong Kong, and had many connections to activist networks and religious

organizations. Kin-man Chan was a Professor of Sociology at the Chinese University of Hong

Kong, and had worked closely with Reverend Chu to start the Hong Kong Democratic

Development Network, organized many political activities among academics, and had

cooperated with the Democracy Party in negotiations with the Beijing government over political

reform.

The Occupy Trio, as Tai, Chu and Chan were frequently referred to, saw OHKLP as

being able act as a “hub,” setting up arenas in which parties and different civil society groups,

such as student groups, unions, activists, nongovernmental organizations (NGOS) and religious

organizations could negotiate and coordinate activities. The Trio was deeply influenced by

Habermas’ theory of the public sphere and deliberative democracy, and wanted to employ

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Ackerman and Fishkin’s concept of a “deliberation day” (Chan 2015). They wanted to form

consensus among pro-democratic players rather than push their own conceptions of what the

reform package should be, in to build a stronger alliance to resist whatever more limited version

of suffrage the Beijing and Hong Kong Executive Council offered.

Table 1: Sub Players in the Struggle to Reform the Election of the Chief Executive 2013-14

Key Sub Players Goals

Pro-DemocracyCompound Player

Occupy Hong Kong with Love and Peace and their supporters:

The “Trio” Benny Tai, Kinman Chan, and Reverend Yiu-ming Chu

Martin Lee Cardinal Zen Jimmy Lai

1. Achieve genuinely competitive elections for the position of Chief Executive that met international democratic standards.2. Create “hub” to unite democratic parties and civil society groups3. Create “era of civil disobedience”

Moderate Democratic Parties, Functional Constituency Legislators and Groups:

The Democratic Party The Civic Party The Labour Party Hong Kong 2020

1. Achieve competitive elections where members of democratic parties could be nominated2. Strengthen political parties3. Win popular support4. Reform the functional constituencies (Hong Kong 2020).

Radical Democratic Parties: League of Social Democrats People Power

1. Achieve public nomination of the Chief Executive.2. Abolish functional constituencies3. Create enough pressure to facilitate direct action

Student and NGO Groups: The Hong Kong Federation of Students Scholarism Civil Human Rights Front

1. Achieve public nomination of the Chief Executive2. Reform functional constituencies, if not abolish them3. Raise public awareness and encourage widespread mobilization

Pro-Beijing/Regime

Mainland Government Officials: Xi Jinping and the Politburo The Hong Kong Macau Office of the State Council Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government

in the HKSAR

1. Maintain the Central Government’s authority over HK2.Ensure that universal suffrage does not create opportunities for the pro-democracy camp

The Executive Council of Hong Kong: Chief Executive CY Leung Chief Secretary Carrie Lam

1. Ensure the re-election by promoting a nominating committee based on the current Election Committee2. Maintain good relations with CCP3. Stop OHKLP’s “occupy” plan

Pro-Beijing Political Parties and Trade Unions: Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong

Kong (DAB)

1. Maintain power by ensuring for the Chief Executive becomes the nominating Committee for the Chief

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New People’s Party Liberal Party The Federation of Trade Unions

Executive.2. Delegitimize OHKLP and keep civil disobedience from occurring.

Movement Organizations: Silent Majority Voice of a Loving Hong Kong Loving Hong Kong Power

1. Stop civil disobedience because it harm commerce and cause chaos2. Ensure the passing of universal suffrage

The second group of sub players within the pro-democracy camp consisted of moderate

democratic political parties that held positions in the legislature and former politicians. Many

among these actors had been activists at one time, but by 2013, they were largely discredited

among the pro-democracy supporters in 2013. One of interviewee said that he specifically

supported Benny Tai because of his “purity”; he was not a politician. Tai himself deliberately

chose two leaders who were not members of the democratic political parties. Many student and

activist interviewees dismissed the parties as incapable and conservative, citing the relatively

limited gains democratic promotion over the last 30 years.

Democratic parties and former politicians were not wholly to blame for their image. The

Democratic Party did mire its reputation by cooperating with Beijing to create a new directly

elected functional constituency in 2010, even though it was highly unpopular among the public.

This action caused internal disputes as well, since both the League of Social Democrats and

Labour Party both tried to prevent it (Chan 2015; Ortmann 2016). The configuration of the

government system under the Basic Law, however, made it hard for democratic parties to

accomplish policy even if these challenges did not exist. Members of the Legislative Council

could not introduce laws that involved public expenditures (Ortmann 2016). The only real

policy-making tools at their disposal were instruments of postponement; they could vote down

legislation, constitutional changes, and filibuster. The proportional representation electoral

system facilitated the rise in the number of democratic parties. The ever-increasing number of

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political parties made coordination difficult. Furthermore, with the support of the business sector,

the largest pro-Beijing party, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong

Kong is able to outspend the largest pro-democracy party, the Democratic Party, 10 to 1 (Fong

2016).

The democratic parties therefore had two main objects in the political reform process that

would implement universal suffrage. They wanted democratic candidates to have a chance of

being nominated for the role of chief executive. At the time, the parties were to be able to

nominate candidates for the Chief Executive as part of the Election Committee, since only 1/8 th

of the Election Committee’s approval was required in order to be nominated. Beijing and the

Executive Council had made statements that the new Nomination Committee to choose the

candidates for Chief Executive should be based on the Election Committee. Political parties

wanted to ensure that should this be the package proposed by the Executive Council, that the

threshold for being nominated by that committee was relatively low, allowing for the nomination

of democratic party candidates to continue. Furthermore, they wanted to strengthen political

party structures by allowing parties to also nominate potential Chief Executive candidates. Some

moderates, such as Anson Chan and Hong Kong 2020, thought at the bare minimum, the 28

functional constituencies could be reformed. Functional constituencies are professional and

special interest groups that are represented in the legislature. A few hundred people are

represented in some of the legislature seats, while corporate voting skews others’

representativeness.

More radical democratic parties such as People Power, League of Social Democrats, and

Civic Passion made up the third sub player group in the pro-democratic camp. While the

moderate democratic parties utilized protests and marches in pressuring the Chief Executive,

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Leung Chun-ying (otherwise known as CY Leung), they utilized more aggressive tactics during

legislative meetings, such as throwing food, and civil disobedience.2 From time to time, these

groups would also interrupt more mainstream political party events,3 and in turn, the Democratic

Party has accused them of being a “fake opposition” created by Beijing (Pepper 2014). These

radical parties believed that all the moderate parties ever did was talk. They argued for “action”

rather than discussion, “we believe that for any political movement… it is not like a concert,

where ten thousand people ‘attend’, it’s not like that. You have to create conflict and

confrontation and then people will respond.”

Radical parties also differed from their more moderate colleagues in their ideal political

reform package. They advocated for only public nomination and the abolition of functional

constituencies. Whereas moderate parties were willing to accept a Nominating Committee so

long as it could produce genuine competition and individuals outside the pro-Beijing camp could

be nominated, they thought it was imperative for democracy that citizens should be able to

nominate individuals.

The final sub-player on the pro-democratic side was student organizations, particularly

Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS) and Scholarism. HKFS was made up of members of

the executive boards of the student unions of eight local universities. It was one of the oldest

student activist organizations, having been formed in 1958. Scholarism, on the other hand, was

formed in 2011, in response to the introduction of a civic education curriculum that many saw as

“brainwashing.” Scholarism was composed of primarily high school students at the time, and

was renowned for their ability to organize over 100,000 people in Civic Square in fall of 2012 in

2 Raymond Wong of Civic Passion faced assault charges for throwing a glass cup at the Chief Executive’s head.3 This occurred even during the Occupy movement. When the Democratic Party publically swore an oath to commit civil disobedience if Beijing did not offer genuine universal suffrage, members of People Power interrupted the proceedings to ridicule them and hurl clothes hangers at them for not committing to public nomination.

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protest of “patriotic education.” HKFS also participated, but got very little press despite their

involvement.

Following the Anti-Patriotic Education movement, both organizations set their sights on

the political reform of the nomination and election Chief Executive. While there were some

initial disagreements about the degree to which to emphasize reforming the Legislative Council

for the 2020 election (LegCo) in their proposal, the two groups were able to reach a consensus by

January 2014 on what they thought the plan should be. Both groups favored only public

nomination. The threshold for public nomination should also be rather low, only 1% of the

population need vote for a candidate to run according their plan.

Due to the People’s Republic of China’s single party authoritarian system, the goals of

the sub players are harder to identify. Interviewees often had different assessments about the

relationship between the Central Government in Beijing and the Executive Council in Hong

Kong. One high level interviewee from the pro-democracy camp thought that while CY Leung,

the city’s current Chief Executive was incredibly authoritarian and corrupt, Xi Jinping, the

President of China, may actually be a reformer, and have the Hong Kong people’s best interest at

heart. Another interviewee at a similar ranking suggested that since China’ is very decentralized,

the Politburo may have no idea what the situation in Hong Kong is like; the Executive Council,

pro-Beijing parties and business elites tell the central government whatever they would like to

hear.

Further complicating assessments of state player strategies is the informality of the

regime. Many interviewees regarded Zhang Xiaoming, director of the Liaison Office of the

Central People’s Government to be a powerful player in determining state strategy, and noted his

close relationship to CY Leung. On paper, this institution is supposed to have far less power than

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the Hong Kong Macao Affairs Office of State Council. Even within the Executive Council, CY

Leung’s actions are often unpredictable, and therefore go unchecked by the other members.

Four distinct sub players with varied interests are discernable during OHKLP’s attempt to

sway political reform. The central government apparatus, and its affiliates the Hong Kong

Macao Affairs Office of State Council and the Liaison Office had a clear interest in ensuring

China’s sovereignty and control over its territory, the Hong Kong Special Administrative

Region. These actors repeatedly tried to assert that while Hong Kong had more autonomy, the

city’s constitution derived its rights from the constitution of the People’s Republic of China, and

it could therefore this autonomy could be rescinded if Hong Kongers were not obedient to the

regime.

The Chief Executive, CY Leung, was only on his first term and planned on running for a

second. That meant the outcomes of political reform for 2017 directly impacted his chances for

being elected again. He therefore sought to limit democratic opponents chances at being

nominated, since democrats consistently won larger shares of the popular vote, even if their

margin was dwindling.4 The Chief Executive also had to maintain good relations with Beijing,

since ultimately, they gave the final seal of approval to any pro-Beijing candidate, and could

theoretically keep him from running.

Pro-Beijing political parties and functional constituencies were heavily favored by the

contemporary system, since they made up the majority of the Election Committee. They

therefore needed the Nominating Committee to be as close as possible in format to the Election

Committee. This institutional configuration would ensure that a member of their group would be

elected, and their parties would have substantial influence over potential candidates. Pro-Beijing

4 CY Leung was incredibly unpopular and lacked a popular mandate; opponents often refer to him as 689, the number of votes that he needed to win from the election committee, highlighting how few out of Hong Kong’s population of 7 million he had to woo to obtain his position.

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parties and politicians also came out against OHKLP’s civil disobedience plan as potentially

causing catastrophic consequences for the economy and potentially promoting chaos. Dr.

Priscilla Leung Mei Fun, also a law professor and member of Legco, brought up Tiananmen

Square, “I have experienced June 4th myself… I was a reporter at that time, you could not control

it” (“ATV World Newsline (Michael Chugani) with Priscilla Leung, Benny Tai” 2013).

The final sub group among the pro-Beijing forces was grassroots organizations that

emerged in late 2013, such as Silent Majority and the Voice of a Loving Hong Kong. These

groups also feared the potential economic and social consequences of the proposed three-day

campaign and believed OHKLP was ruining the chances of universal suffrage being actually

implemented. There were doubts about how many members these grassroots organizations

actually contained. Some among their members spoke no Cantonese (one of the official

languages of Hong Kong). Often times these organizations paid for lunch and visits to tourist

attractions for those that participated in their rallies. Their goal, nonetheless, was to show that

there was popular support denouncing OHKLP, and to prevent the implementation of civil

disobedience.

The Founding of OHKLP and Initial Steps Toward the Referendum.

Benny Tai You-ting initially called for the use of civil disobedience in the Hong Kong

Economic Journal, a newspaper dedicated to current affairs and financial news, on January 16 th,

2013. In the subsequent week, Tai was able to launch a citywide discussion of his “Civil

Disobedience as the Most Powerful of Weapons” following an interview with the online site

InMedia that gained significant attention throughout Hong Kong.

Alluding to the success of Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, the law professor

contended that pro-democracy activists needed to escalate tactics to signal their resolve in

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pursuing genuine universal suffrage. He envisioned a crowd of 10,000 people occupying the

heart of Hong Kong’s financial sector, the Central District. These pro-democracy forces would

peacefully resist, but would also accept being arrested as the legal consequences of their actions.

It was imperative for Tai that demonstrators surrender themselves; that would give pro-

democracy forces the moral high ground and prove that they abided by the rule of law. Tai

argued from the beginning that civil disobedience must only be utilized as a tactic of last resort:

players should use aggressive tactics when all other avenues of negotiations had failed.

These tactics were seen as being aggressive in the Hong Kong setting. Civil disobedience

and occupation were not entirely novel tactics. Radical parties such as People Power and League

of Social Democrats had committed acts of civil disobedience on several occasions before.5 The

student group, Scholarism, employed an occupation of Civic Square, setting up tents in front of

LegCo, during the 2012 Anti-Patriotic Education movement. In fact, Tai chose the name in part

because of the Occupy Central Movement that had lasted for 10 months and only disbanded 6

months prior.6 Despite the more radical flank of the pro-democracy movement’s small-scale

utilization of civil disobedience, most mainstream players employed fairly routinized tactics,

such as marches, vigils, and rallies in the streets, and filibusters in the legislature. Mass civil

disobedience had never been employed in recent Hong Kong history, making Tai’s strategy

novel and eye-catching.

The Occupy Trio saw OHKLP as being able act as a “hub.” They could create arenas

were a variety of pro-democratic players, including parties, civil society groups, such as student

5 Benny Tai said the tactics of League of Social Democrats legislator/activist Leung Kwok-hung, nicknamed “Long Hair”, in part inspired him. 6 Occupy Hong Kong (2011-2012) was part of the global Occupy movement, protesting inequality by creating an encampment in a public passage way under HBSC’s Asia Headquarters. One interview subject that worked closely with the Occupy Trio recalled their regret over the name, as there were never any plans for a long-term encampment of this sort.

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groups, unions, activists, NGOS and religious organizations could negotiate and coordinate

activities. They wanted to ensure the rules of the arena, but did not want to predetermine the

outcome, so as to encourage maximum participation. The Trio therefore organized a series of

Deliberation Days, in which different proposals for how the Chief Executive should be

nominated would be formulated and discussed by citizens, politicians, students and activist

groups. These deliberation days were to culminate in a citywide unofficial referendum, in which

the population would be able to vote on the top proposals discussed during the Deliberation

Days. That proposal would then be presented to the Hong Kong government. If neither the local

government nor the Beijing government took the proposal seriously, OHKLP would initiate its

plan of civil disobedience.

The Trio commissioned the Hong Kong Public Opinion Programme (HKPOP) at the

University of Hong Kong to help run both the Deliberation Days and the final unofficial

referendum on various political reform proposals. Dr. Robert Chung Ting-Yiu, the director of

HKPOP had held a similar online referendum on a smaller scale, asking Hong Kongers in 2012

who they would vote in as the next Chief Executive if given the choice between the three

candidates (the most popular answer was “none of the above”). HKPOP used their database of

Hong Kong voters to invite a random sample of the public to be involved in the Deliberation

Days. They also organized the materials and break out groups for these events. The program

conducted survey research throughout the day to see how people’s opinions changed as a result

of the discussions taking place.

The first Deliberation Day occurred on June 9th, 2013, and focused on the concept of

democracy. Participants were polled before and after the event to see if their feelings towards

participating in civil disobedience had changed as a result of the discussions that had taken place.

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The second Deliberation Day was actually a series of smaller meetings in the fall of 2013

designed to pay more individual attention to smaller groups and discuss specific proposals

regarding procedures for the nomination of the chief executive.

OHKLP then collected proposals on reforming the nomination process for the Chief

Executive that had been discussed publically, as well as those that had been submitted to them by

sub players participating in the arena. In April of 2014, the Trio then invited international law

and democracy experts from around the world to look at all of the proposals, and evaluate

whether or not they met international standards regarding democracy. The experts were told to

focus on two aspects in particular: was there a genuine choice between candidates and would the

elections this nomination proposal produced be competitive. Of the many proposals that had

been submitted, 15 were picked out as meeting international standards. A month after this

process, they held the third Deliberation Day on May 6th, where participants in all of the previous

Deliberation Days could come discuss the different proposals, and then vote on them. The top

three proposals with the most votes would be on the referendum ballot.

The Occupy Trio also set up another arena, a Consultative Committee for OHKLP.

Many of the prominent stakeholders, including political parties, civil society groups, and student

leaders, were incorporated into the Consultative Committee. While the Trio sought the input of

the committee in tactical matters regarding the Deliberation Days, public promotion of the

referendum, and organizing the eventual civil disobedience campaign. Despite these

consultations, Tai, Chan, and Chu made most of the major decisions. The Trio had already

formulated the overall plan for the Occupy Movement, including the Deliberation Days and the

referendum, before setting up the committee, and primarily treated it as an arena in which to

provide information and foster coordination.

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Prominent groups were left out of the Consultative Committee. Two of the more radical

pro-democracy parties, League of Social Democrats or People Power were excluded. While the

leadership of People Power respected Benny Tai, they were suspicious of Chu and Chan.7 The

Trio still remained in frequent contact with the two parties; both held events where they invited

the Trio to speak and members attended the Deliberation Days. Scholarism could not to directly

participate in the Consultative Committee either, because many of their members were high

school students that were too young to vote, and therefore too young to participate in civil

disobedience.8 While there were some undergraduate students within the organization, the Trio

worried about the possible fallout of angry parents, concerned about their children getting

arrested and ruining the future academic and professional careers. Yet Tai met with Joshua

Wong Chi-fung of Scholarism near the inception of Occupy, and continued to meeting with

Scholarism frequently throughout the Deliberation Days.9 Scholarism still worked with the Hong

Kong Federation of Students, an organization that was invited to the Consultative Committee, to

submit the “Students Proposal.”

The Losses Resulting From the Third Referendum

OHKLP’s decision to act as a hub instead of advancing a specific plan for the nomination

of the Chief Executive led to a trade off commonly associated with the extension dilemma. One

of the gains of creating arenas that facilitate negotiation was that the organization was able to

gather large amounts of resources. OHKLP received the most donations of any group at the

7 One People Passion leader stated, “I do not believe those two guys, I know their style, I know their thinking. They are not the type of people who will organize a civil disobedience movement. You need people who will be willing to be beaten by police and then put in jail, and to then to be persecuted. They don’t have the will. By having such people it means that you are not sincere, you just want to talk…from the moment he appoint those two guys… I said the movement was gone.” 8 The voting age in Hong Kong is 18. 9 Joshua Wong recalled in an interview that Benny Tai had taken him to lunch early on and told him that he was “too idealistic- there was no sense in demanding civic nomination of the Chief Executive, the people of Hong Kong wouldn’t accept it”(Wong 2015, 47).

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annual July 1st march in 2013, raising 1 million Hong Kong Dollars, slightly more than

Scholarism (But and Tsang 2013).10 The Trio was also able to generate hundreds of thousands of

dollars through exclusive fundraising dinners where guests got to meet important scholars,

political figures, and celebrities affiliated with multiple parties.

The trade off was that they could not ensure that all parties would actually be satisfied

with the outcome of competition within the arena, since their control was more limited. Players

were more likely to join, but less likely to be invested in the outcome. The Trio faced a major

crisis when the three most popular proposals for chief executive that came out of the third

Deliberation Day all contained public nomination. This meant that none of the moderate

proposals would appear on the referendum; all of the options were in violation of Beijing’s

demand that proposals follow the format elucidated in the Basic Law. The Basic Law states that

the Chief Executive must be elected by a “broadly representative nominating committee,”

making it easy for the central government to dismiss any proposal that did not feature a

nominating committee (Davis 2016).

Infighting broke out among the political parties. Moderate players who submitted

proposals publically denounced the results as undemocratic. Kenneth Leung, a lawmaker who

had previously supported OHKLP, turned on the Trio, and said their process could be “criticized

for bearing resemblance to the 1,200-strong election committee” that chose the chief executive

(Cheung and Chong 2014). A representative of Hong Kong 2020, similarly lashed out against the

trio, stating that “a relatively small and unrepresentative group have effectively disenfranchised a

large section of the community who do not want to be led down a path towards direct

10 One of the rituals that developed as the annual July 1st March evolved was that parties, civil society groups, student groups and other organizations all seek donations along the path of the march. Group members are often stationed at different points in order to be able to maximize their chances of not being overlooked. In addition to donations, organizations sell t-shirts, banners, and often give out pamphlets about their work.

19

confrontation with the central government” (Cheung and Chong 2014). This was an undeniable

moment of loss for the Occupy Central movement, in that it not only threatened the carefully

constructed alliance among various pan-democratic players, but members were publically

insinuating that the process itself was a form of election-rigging, the very thing the movement

was fighting against.

While there was a trade off in not fully controlling the results of the arena, a few other

factors led to this outcome that are of note. First of all, the Trio consulted a public relations firm,

who told them to minimize the number of choices that could be picked for the referendum, so as

to not create confusion. Hence, the Trio chose to include three options in the referendum. If they

had expanded the number to five, a moderate proposal without public nomination might have

been on the referendum. Additionally, the public relations firm advised them to hold the

referendum the same day as third set of deliberations, where participants learned about each of

the fifteen proposals. They thought that would be the best way to get media attention, “if you are

just a meeting, without results, people will not report about that.” Benny Tai subsequently

lamented that decision, “from the spirit of deliberation, that may not be too right to do so,

because you have to have some cooling off period for the people after they discuss.”

The fact that the deliberation and the vote were on the same day also made it easier for

certain groups to mobilize participants. Some participants demanded to vote from the beginning,

before going through the process of learning and discussing the various options. While the Trio

had advocated that only those who had participated in the previous Deliberation Days should

attend the final vote, the third Deliberation Day was happening in 5 different locations and it was

therefore difficult for the organization to monitor and ensure that all participants were actually

qualified.

20

Since the OHKLP organizers themselves remained neutral on the different proposal

formulations, only promoting the process of selection, players with previous grassroots

mobilization were automatically advantaged in comparison to players with policy-making

backgrounds. Many of the moderates made little attempt to actually mobilize support among

possible participants for the third deliberation day. HKFS, Scholarism, People Power, and

League of Social Democrats all had practiced routines for grassroots mobilization, and they were

able to ensure their supporters attendance and commitment to public nomination on the final

deliberation day.

The Trio also failed to anticipate and plan for this scenario because they underestimated

the student networks that were taking part in movement activity up through the third Deliberation

Day. There was little consideration of the impact holding the Deliberation Day in universities

during the daytime on a Tuesday might have on the composition of the participants. As stated

previously, the Occupy Trio overlooked Scholarism as being primarily high school students and

did not include them in the organizing committee. Therefore they were not aware of their

mobilization efforts for the third Deliberation Day. They also ignored the fact that many of the

students who had taken part in the 2012 Anti-National Education protests were now in college by

this point in time. One member of Scholarism interviewed for this project recalled that she went

into her small group and argued passionately for public nomination. Considering that many of

the other participants came into the meeting not knowing a significant amount about the other

options, she was able to convince quite a few people regarding her position.

The Occupy Trio may not have been aware of the strategies of student players, because

HKFS, Scholarism and representatives from NGOS like the Civil Human Rights Front often met

separately from the Consultative Committee. By spring of 2014, HKFS and civil society groups

21

had begun to view the Consultative Committee as a false arena, leading them to engage less

openly in meetings. The exiting leadership of HKFS informed the incoming leadership that the

“role of the committee is ambiguous.” While it seemed like a place where decision-making

occurred, “what Benny and the other two project publicly is totally different from what is

discussed in the meetings… When they say something different than what has been discussed in

the committee, then it becomes, ‘Well, what am I for?’”

There was also a powerful allies dilemma regarding influencing student activities too

directly. On the one hand, students may want the resources and mentorship older players could

provide, but they would also be seen as being pawns in a larger game. This made it difficult to

bridge information gaps. Adults could not be seen as interfering either. One prominent pan-

democratic politician admitted that

“We do not want to be accused of interfering with student movement. For student movements, they want to be regarded as an independent student movement, not ‘we are actually being controlled by political parties’… Thirty or forty years ago I was a student leader, but we shouldn’t. We sometimes ask them to join our parties and we do not want to interfere in their direction.”

A student traced this discomfort surrounding around coordination between generations to state

policies of the past:

“In Hong Kong, for student movements, there was also a tradition that the CCP would

like to establish a united front, so they would also allocate a lot of resources nurturing

students who are be pro-Beijing. There has been a tradition starting in 50s, 70s. So

when it came to recent years, students and alumni accuse the Executive Committee [of

HKFS] of being Pro-Beijing. And that would trigger a fight. Alumni would be accused

of influencing students no matter they are pro-Beijing or pro- democracy.”

The legacy of the machinations in student organizations to cultivate support for the Mainland

meant that alumni on both sides of the struggle could be accused of using CCP tactics, which

22

were deemed illegitimate. Students also resisted high levels of coordination with “old ghosts”;

in order to make sure that their actions were taken seriously, and not seen as the product of

intrigue.11

Moreover, students and NGO members began to see the Occupy Trio as closely

coordinating with the “conservative” pan-democratic party politicians. The arena seemed to be

“well-crafted” for the pan-democrats, and the students and NGOs wanted to push the democrats

toward public nomination. Kinman Chan openly stated the Trio was moderate, and would have

been happy without public nomination, so long as the final proposal met international standards.

One student described Benny Tai’s strength as being his “kindness in balancing concerns,” but

recognized that his pre-occupation with holding the pan-democratic camp together made him

more responsive to political parties’ interests on occasion.

The Trio now faced a dilemma, technically, the more radical sub players in their alliance

had won the day. If they lost the moderates, not only would they lose allies who could provide

public support, but also these allies were turning into detractors, which could lead to the

upcoming referendum being a disaster. If they appeased the moderates, however, the radical

flank might accuse them of not playing by the rules that they themselves created.

Rebuilding the Alliance and the Gains of the Referendum

OHKLP wanted to appease the moderates by adding an addendum to the options offered

in the referendum: individuals would be able to pick between the three options, but there would

be a second question. The question would ask if the LegCo should vote down the Executive

Council’s proposal if it did not meet international standard. The implication was that democratic

legislators could vote for any proposal offered by the Executive Council, even those that did not

contain the public option, so long as it met international standards for featuring choice and

11 Alumni who spent too much time influencing students were informally referred to as “old ghosts.”

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competition. This gave democratic legislators had leeway in approving legislation on political

reform. Students, social workers, and members of the Catholic Church all decried this change in

the rules for the referendum as being undemocratic and violating due process.

In a Coordinating Committee meeting, Kin-man Chan showed members of the committee

a video of Ching Cheong, a venerated, outspoken critic of the Chinese government and former

political prisoner, criticizing the referendum as stupid for excluding a moderate option.12 Even

though in some ways this was a false arena, with no genuine change in rules or structures, public

participation was incredibly important. The referendum would nonetheless strengthen OHKLP

and the pro-democrats position in asserting that there was a demand for genuine universal

suffrage. This referendum would also give Hong Kongers a taste of what universal suffrage was

like, and why it was important to have.

Chan warned the committee that, if the moderates remained hostile, the turn out for the

referendum would be low. Hong Konger would view the public as ambivalent, and they would

not be in a strong position to deal with Beijing. If the turnout for the referendum were less than

10,000 participants, the Occupy Trio would go on a retreat, and then quit leading the

movement.13 In response, many of the key stakeholders continued to disagree with the decision,

but voiced their understanding, and abstained from publicly admonishing the leadership.

While the Occupy Trio and their allies took steps to resolve internal disputes, the

government’s actions strengthened resolve and partnerships between pan-democratic forces and

helped the referendum succeed in June despite the publicity crisis over the May 6 th Deliberation

Day. On June 10th, a little less than two weeks before Occupy’s referendum was to begin, the

Information Office of The State Council of the People’s Republic of China issued the first white

12 Ching Cheong had been a reporter accused of spying for Taiwan, who was imprisoned in Mainland China from 2005 to 2008. 13

24

paper since the 1997 handover, called “The Practice of the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ Policy

in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.”

The paper claimed “some are even confused or lopsided in their understanding of ‘one

country, two systems;’” Hong Kong autonomy depended on the will of the Chinese government,

since “The Constitution of the PRC and the Basic Law together constitute the constitutional basis

of the HKSAR” (The State Council, People's Republic of China 2014). While the white paper

was not a legal document, and much of it was in line with the Basic Law, many interpreted the it

as redefining when the central government could exert authority over Hong Kong, since before

the central government mainly determined national defense and foreign relations. Moreover, the

white paper seemed to threaten judicial independence, stating that judges should be patriots who

took Hong Kong’s long term economic, political and security situation into consideration (The

State Council, People's Republic of China 2014).

There were a few losses for the central government as a result of this action. One loss was

a drop in public support. A poll conducted by the Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies at the Chinese

University (CUHK) found that 43.6% of citizens did not trust the Chinese government, a 5%

increase from the previous month. The University of Hong Kong also found that 33% of

respondents to their survey of 963 people had negative appraisals of the Central government’s

policies toward Hong Kong (Fung 2014). Lawyers also launched a series of public discussions,

as well as a silent march in support of an independent judiciary that dovetailed with the final

days of the referendum. This helped to create further awareness for Occupy and encouraged

participating in the referendum.

Hong Kong’s Chief Secretary Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor also admitted that the local

government now had a much smaller chance of being able to convince moderate pan-democratic

25

legislators to sign the eventual proposal approved by the Chinese government as a result of the

white paper (Lam 2014). For political reform to pass in the legislature, at least five members of

the democratic coalition would have to vote for it. The Central Government had effectively

isolated any opportunity for empowering moderate voices within the political reform process.

Public frustration with the central government grew when Occupy reported that the pre-

registration site HKPOP had set up for the referendum faced over 10 billion distributed denial of

service attacks just three days after white paper came out. Apple Daily, the news organization

run by Jimmy Lai and HKPOP itself also faced online attacks, shutting down websites for over

12 hours. The Internet Society of Hong Kong traced 40 per cent of the attacks IP addresses of

mainland firms (Lam and Zhai 2014). While HKPOP had planned to also have 15 polling

stations across Hong Kong, online voting through an app was a key tactic to bolstering the

overall percentage of the population who could vote.14

These attacks interfered with narratives of other pro-Beijing sub players. The DAB and

other pro-Beijing parties’ dismissal of the referendum as a glorified public opinion poll with no

legitimate legal standing made the cyber attacks appear more intrusive and heavy-handed. The

Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office called the referendum unlawful, on the grounds that it

could be connected to a conspiracy to commit a crime, in this case, civil disobedience. The ballot

did not mention the occupation strategy at all, however, only focusing on what the nature of the

political reform package should be. The lack of a serious investigation into the hacking resulting

in arrests made this accusation seem more hypocritical. Pro-Beijing analysts pointed out that it

was possible to “use a website that can generate valid ID card numbers and then vote with new

14 All permanent residents that were over the age of 18 could vote in the referendum, following the same protocol as citywide elections.

26

mobile phone SIM cards,” but again, the scale for vote rigging seemed minimal compared to the

sophisticated ddos attacks.

Due to the cyber attacks, HKPOP and OHKLP had a reason to extend the voting period

from three days, June 20-22nd, to ten days, June 20th through 29th. They also planned to set up 10

more polling stations toward the end of the week, in case people could still not access the voting

app. HKPOP also applied for help from large international companies Cloud fare and Google in

order to overcome to At the time, Kin-man Chan guessed that the polling stations had the

capacity to handle around 75,000 to 175,000 people. Speaking with several news organizations,

he tried to sell the possibility of diminished turnout as “every vote counting more”, since people

may have to wait in long lines to vote. Moreover, the Occupy Trio were able to argue that voting

in the referendum was not necessarily a commitment to participate in the civil disobedience, but

rather it sent Beijing a message regarding Hong Kong autonomy.

The pan-democratic camp also promoted the referendum. Scholarism and HKFS set up

mobile polling stations. Scholarism, the Occupy Trio and their supporters rented out trolleys and

buses to drive through the city, reminding people to vote. The pan-democrats promoted the

referendum in media outlets, focusing on the referendum as a means to assert Hong Kong’s core

values. Even former detractors, such as members of Hong Kong 2020, advocated that people

should vote, in order to show that they valued Hong Kong autonomy.

In the end, the referendum garnered 792,808 votes, a major gain for the pro-democratic

camp. Nearly one third of the voting population participated in the referendum, far beyond the

expectations of the pan-democratic camp. Moreover, only 8 per cent of the people who voted

abstained choosing one of the three public-option proposals, and an overwhelming 87.8 percent

of participants voted that the LegCo should veto any proposal that did not meet international

standards.

Managing Audiences and the Break Away of the Radical Flank

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Benny Tai and OHKLP’s early call for civil disobedience contained a bundle of gains and

losses for movement. On the one hand, having called for aggressive action, the Trio was able to

attract attention and convince democratic players to utilize the arena they set up, encouraging

coordination towards the larger goal from a very early stage. On the other hand, opponents could

focus in on the aggressive tactics and undermine the goals of the players as uniformly radical to

the public.

From the very beginning, government opponents accused Occupy Hong Kong with Love

and Peace of inciting people to break the law, invoking chaos and disrupting commerce. Dr.

Priscilla Leung Mei Fun, also a law professor and member of Legco stated of Tai only a month

after his article came out, “He is really calling upon people to intentionally violate the law… All

of us should recall that, two years ago, a sergeant fell to his death from a flyover in Wan Chai

when he attempted to rescue a demonstrator out of good intention… There are many unintended

consequences, and even in a well-planned activity involving 10,000 or 30,000 people may not

necessarily come under control” (Leung 2013). The Silent Majority for Hong Kong, an anti-

Occupy group set up by a news radio host and a economics professor, also claimed that would

lead to violence and economic disaster. Shortly before the referendum they released a video

called “They can kill our city!” In the advertisement, they claimed that within one hour of the

occupation starting, 1.3 million people would be trapped on Hong Kong Island, violence would

erupt, and emergency medical care and police would be totally unavailable (The Silent Majority

for Hong Kong 2014).

To overcome this narrative and gain widespread public support, OHKLP insisted that

occupation was an action of last resort. OHKLP would only call for the participants to occupy if

the government failed to provide a plan that met international standards for democracy. This

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meant they had to wait until Beijing came up with the final proposal for how the Chief Executive

would be nominated. While the Trio anticipated it taking at least a year, the process was a lot

slower than expected. The Hong Kong government did not start the public consultation process

until November of 2013; a full 9 months after the Trio had publically announced Occupy. The

process did not finish until the end of July 2014, and the central government’s decision was not

unveiled until the end of August. Over 19 months passed between the initiation of Occupy and

the government’s decision.

The student groups, Scholarism and HKFS wanted to build off of this success, by holding

a practice occupation in Central immediately following the annual July 1st March. They planned

to stay until morning, and peacefully turn themselves over at 8:00 in the morning. While the idea

was discussed in advance, neither group fully committed to this plan of action until the night of

June 30th. The Occupy Trio objected to the practice sit-in at the 2014 July 1 st march on the

grounds that it was still not the right time, as the government still had not responded to their

proposal. They did nothing to stop their supporters from participating in the action.

Student groups grew frustrated with this delay, and took it upon themselves to act at the

July 1st march. One member of the Executive Council of HKFS voiced concern over

demonstrating to the Hong Kong population that civil disobedience was not in fact as dangerous

as it seemed, and would not hurt the economy or lead to chaos. They thought if they

demonstrated how civil disobedience worked and the impact it could have, would want to join.

Moreover, HKFS had drifted further from both the political parties and the Occupy Trio, feeling

that their input was not appreciated during meetings.

Scholarism was also eager to initiate civil disobedience strategies, since they believed

the calls for action had dragged on to long, dampening support for the occupation. Since many of

Scholarism students were in secondary school, however, many did not want to get arrested and

wreck their chances of getting in to a good university program. Therefore, the primary

participants were from HKFS, along with the Civil Human Rights Front. A few politicians

29

participated, including Albert Ho of the Democratic Party and “Long Hair” Kwok. Many more

political party members stayed watched the sit-in in order to ensure the students’ safety and call

for legal services if needed.

Five hundred people participated in the sit in, and it was considered a tremendous success

both for its peacefulness, and its ability to maintain the occupation until 8:00 AM. Police had

begun to carry people away, but the promise was time consuming, with two or three police

officers required to carry off every person. This process was even more tedious because under

Hong Kong law, only female cops could touch female protesters, and there were not that many

female cops at the occupation site. The success of the occupation bolstered the reputation of

HKFS, who before had been outshone by Scholarism, due to the latter’s more public role in the

Anti-Patriotic Education movement of 2012. While this led to some rivalry between the two

student groups, it also spurred them on to plan more elaborate activities in the pro-democracy

struggle.

In spite of the student’s aggressive actions, the Hong Kong Government took a long time

to even meet with the Occupy Trio following the July 1 st March and the June referendum.

Earlier in 2013, the Executive Council had expressed an interest in meeting with OHKLP, but

they wanted to wait until after the deliberation days had concluded and the public had gotten a

chance to vote on the proposals. Kin-man Chan stated that they did not want to make the same

mistake the Democratic Party had in 2010, negotiating with the regime without a popular

mandate. After the referendum, however, weeks went by with no word from the Hong Kong

Government. Chief Secretary Carrie Lam met with all of the other groups who had submitted

proposals before finally making an appointment to meet with Tai, Chan and Chu at the end of

July 2014.

The meeting between the local government officials and the Occupy Trio was strained.

The officials asked the three to desist in their actions and not conduct a civil disobedience

campaign. The Trio tried to argue that they were moderates, and that if Lam made them a

counter offer, they could negotiate with both radical and moderate elements of the pan-

30

democratic camp. Lam made it clear that as far as the executive branch was concerned, they were

the radicals. She left the proposal Benny Tai handed her untouched following the meeting. She

then held a press conference both affirming that they had met, and reiterating that they should

desist in their efforts.

Even with this encounter, the Trio did not initiate civil disobedience tactics. Tai took a

vacation to Japan with his family for a week and a half. He still thought there was a chance that

Beijing would offer a reform package that offered some room for negotiation. OHKLP had even

budgeted money raised from the July 1st march for a second referendum. Chan continued to take

press calls, giving comments while the Silent Majority gathered signatures for a petition against

Occupy Central,15 and then later when Silent Majority and The Voice of a Loving Hong Kong,

held a march in August.

The Trio may have chosen to delay civil disobedience tactics may also have been because

relatively few people had pledged to commit civil disobedience and Occupy Central. By the July

1st March, only around 3000 had signed an oath pledging to take part in the sit-in and shoulder

the burden of being arrested, far short of their goal of 10,000. OHKLP needed the “pressure” to

be intense in order to build their numbers.

On August 31st, Beijing finally issued a plan for universal suffrage in Hong Kong, but it

reflected none of the reforms the pan-democratic camp had been hoping for. The nominating

committee was to be based on the current election committee, which highly favored business and

pro-Beijing interests. Only 2 or 3 candidates would be chosen, with the consent of 50% of the

nominating committee. All candidates must “love Hong Kong and love China.” Essentially, this

15 For all intensive purposes, Robert Chow copied many aspects of the referendum, though he was criticized for not having any restraints on participation, foreigners were invited to sign as well. The Chief Executive, many police officers, and Carrie Lam all signed the petition.

31

meant there would be no chance for a pan-democratic candidate to be elected; all of the choices

would favor Beijing and their inner circle of business elites interests.

Initially, Benny Tai caused confusion by stating that Occupy had “failed” in several news

outlets. While he later clarified that he meant that they had failed to sway Beijing, it did lead to

some hesitations among supporters. He also made another guarantee that the eventual “banquet”

(the codename for the occupation), would in no way affect Hong Kong’s thriving financial

sector; it would be as unobtrusive as possible.

This emphasis on the trifling impact of the occupation was again an attempt to bolster

public support and ease fears of economic fallout, in an attempt to recruit new volunteers. Tai

arranged to hold the occupation on a national holiday.16 Since he anticipated the occupation

taking only a few days at most (however long it took the police to carry away each of the

protesters), the streets would be cleared by time the holiday weekend was over. This led to a

trade off for the Occupy Trio: once again they were countering the opposition’s narratives and

appeal to the public, but once again, they had to minimize the very aggression that caught the

attention of their inner circle of democratic supporters.

The dampening of promises of aggressive action led to different reactions along

generational fault lines. Some veteran activists interviewed were disappointed. The action was

too mild to exert real pressure on the government. The Chinese government was not going to

create martyrs, and therefore the actions would result in no more than a suspended sentence.

Public sympathy required more suffering. Veterans still supported the Occupy Trio, however,

and followed their lead through September of 2014. For these interviewees, Hong Kong was too

small to muster a real threat to leverage against Beijing; their hope lay in keeping the moral high

ground and the attention of the international community.

16 The original plan was to have the occupation on National Day, October 1st.

32

Members of student groups such as HKFS and Scholarism, on the other hand, were more

frustrated with Occupy’s strategy regarding aggressive tactics. By specifying all of the steps

Occupy and its supporters were going to take, all of the bargaining power against Beijing was

lost. The regime would be able to perfectly anticipate, and therefore control, their actions. In

interviews, some students were also not as interested in preserving the nonviolent character of

the movement. One prominent student leader implied that the Occupy Trio was confusing the

goal, democracy, with the tactic, non-violent civil disobedience. If the tactic did not work in

achieving the goal, then multiple methods should be used, or tactics should be changed all

together. Preserving the tactic at all cost only served to threaten the larger goal.

While more suspicious and frustrated by Occupy’s tactics, the students decided to plan an

event protesting Beijing’s stance that provided a lead in to the occupation. They planned to hold

a weeklong strike from Monday, September 22nd, through Friday, September 26th. The first day

was to be on the different campuses, but Tuesday through Friday was to be down in Admiralty,

next to the government buildings at Tamar Park. They contacted professors and put together a

list of panels and lectures that would take place at the strike. While political party members did

go down to the Tamar Park and talked with students, they were not involved in the student’s

strategizing.

The first day of the strike went really well, with 4000-6000 participants. Unfortunately,

HKFS and Scholarism found that the numbers were dwindling towards the middle of the week.

They also began to worry that even if the numbers picked back up on Thursday and Friday, the

occupation was still five days away, and participants may not come back once they had left.

When the police did not approve their use of Tamar Park on Friday night, nor another possible

33

marching route, HKFS and Scholarism made the last minute decision to “take back” Civic

Square.

Civic Square was a symbolic spot for the student activists, because it had been the site of

the successful Anti-Patriotic Education campaign in 2012. While the area had originally been

open to the public, the Hong Kong government made the decision to close it off after the

campaign, placing high barred fences around the square, as well as security guards.

Scholarism used their connections to get the gate to the Square unlocked, while members

of HKFS simply climbed over the bars. While the police were swift to act and arrest some of the

students, they had a dearth of female guards with them. This meant that some of the female

protesters were able to get to the center of the square, and link arms. The students were still

expecting the police to clear them out of Civic Square, but instead, they held back, only arresting

some of the students. Neither HKFS nor Scholarism was sure of what to do at this point, but

knew that they could not leave until their comrades had been released from police custody. Many

citizens stayed with the students in order to ensure their safety and to support them.

After deliberating, Occupy Trio decided to come down to Civic Square and announce the

beginning of Occupy Hong Kong with Love and Peace. Benny Tai felt that even though the

movement was not supposed to start for another few days, it had to start sooner in order to

support the students. He was worried he would be blamed for not acting when these students

were suffering on his behalf.

The students welcomed the support of the Occupy Trio, but tried to warn them not to

announce the initiation of Occupy. Their ideal plan was to elicit the resources OHKLP had

amassed for the upcoming occupation to help them with their current endeavor. Somehow these

34

intentions were miscommunicated, and Tai ended up announcing the beginning of Occupy in the

early hours of the morning.

Almost immediately, people began to leave. The participants had been there to support

the students, and did not want to be arrested. Moreover, this seemed like political activists

interfering with a student movement, which again, was frowned upon because of previous

government machinations. The Trio was only able to salvage the situation by giving over

leadership to Scholarism and HKFS. They agreed to support, rather than lead the movement,

ending their tenure as the leadership of the pro-democracy forces.

The following evening, police used tear gas on the peaceful occupation, which led to

widespread public outcry and hundreds of thousands supporting the movement. Hong Kong

Federation of Students was named the official leaders of the movement by the Hong Kong

government, who chose to only negotiate with them. While Benny Tai and Kinman Chan stayed

at the Admiralty site for over a month, the Hong Kong Federation of Students was in charge of a

negotiation that OHKLP had spent over a year tirelessly planning.

Despite this setback, Benny Tai has kept planning. Most recently he was involved in

advocating voters pick candidates based on an app that showed them how popular the candidates

were. This would allow voters to directly coordinate their votes, without having to rely as

heavily on the maintenance of the coalition.

Conclusion

OHKLP found it difficult to maintain its multiple audiences, leading the breakdown with

its radical flank. Initially, OHKLP had been able to extend its ranks by suggesting aggressive

tactics that caught media attention, and then positioning themselves as a neutral convener of an

35

arena. When the radical elements succeeded in winning in the arena, Occupy found it having to

back peddle in order to appease more moderate sub players and garner public support. .

Beijing’s heavy-handed tactics momentarily allowed OHKLP overcome its problems.

The white paper and the ddos attacks on the referendum made it impossible for the moderate pro-

Beijing and pro-democracy factors to work together. The central government’s actions also

weakened the strategies of other state players trying to invalidate the referendum.

The connections between players not only respond to government forces, but the complex

interplay between government forces and quests for public approval. To maintain public support

against the opposition’s claims, OHKLP found it repeatedly enervating its aggressive tactics,

leading to more factionalism among the pro-democratic players. Occupy felt bound to wait for

Beijing’s actions, and even after they acted, bound to ensure that minimum damage was

inflicted. Students and radical groups thought that the delay was too long to make the actions

successful, eventually leading students to initiate actions that would put them in the driver’s seat

of the Umbrella movement.

Despite this setback, Benny Tai has kept planning. Most recently he was involved in

advocating voters pick candidates based on an app that showed them how popular the candidates

were. This would allow voters to directly coordinate their votes, without having to rely as

heavily on the maintenance of the coalition.

36

Citations

“ATV World Newsline (Michael Chugani) with Priscilla Leung, Benny Tai.” 2013. Hong Kong:

Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hm7beyGxYvI.

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