Hong Kong demands democracy: an interview with Michael Davis.

• Position: Interview

Massive pro-democracy protests broke out in Hong Kong in late September 2014, which began with university and secondary school students boycotting classes. Protesters are demanding the right to democratically elect their next chief executive, Hong Kong's highest elected position, in response to the Chinese government's announcement that they will vet and preapprove all candidates. Pro-democracy activists say that this is not the universal suffrage promised by Beijing in the Hong Kong Basic Law and a further 2007 decision of the National People's Congress. The Basic Law is the constitutional document of the Hong Kong administrative region. Law professor Michael Davis teaches at the University of Hong Kong and has lived in Hong Kong for thirty years. He has long observed and written about the pro-democracy political movement in the administrative region. He spoke with the Journal about the latest developments in the protests, as of 1 October 2014. (1)

Journal of International Affairs: You have spent some time out in the streets among the protests. Can you describe the atmosphere right now?

Michael Davis: Actually, at the moment it is very festive and not tense. It was obviously quite tense when the police were tear-gassing people. But at present, there are a lot of young people walking about, and many of their parents have come down to lend support. There are several protest venues. The main one that I have visited is near the center of Hong Kong in the Admiralty district. In the mornings, there tend to be fewer people, but by late in the day, there are tens of thousands of people. No one really has a clear estimate, but people have guessed 100,000 people. And there are several sites, so we are kind of watching to see what comes next.

Journal: You mentioned parents joining the students. Is there a lot of support across the city, then, for the protests?

Davis: Oh yes. The people who started it were students boycotting class; university students boycotted for a whole week, and were joined by secondary students on Friday, 26 September. During the boycott, they have gathered in various places, but mostly near the government headquarters. So crowds of these students were there on the Friday that the crowds were the largest because the secondary students joined them. These students are led primarily by a group called the Hong Kong Federation of Students, which is like a student union, and by another group called Scholarism.

Scholarism was founded earlier, when China, through the Hong Kong government, was trying to impose national education on Hong Kong. This was about three or four years ago. The government was editing student textbooks on China to make them friendlier towards Beijing. And so secondary students, fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds, launched protests, and the government backed down and...