Lai See | Umbrella Movement is frittering away its gains
Readers may recall that this, according to Michael DeGolyer, the professor of government and international studies at Hong Kong Baptist University, was the most likely of the strategies to be employed by the mainland in dealing with the "Umbrella Movement".
This envisages the slow strangulation of the movement using a divide and conquer strategy which inflicts painful but easily reversible economic damage in incremental measures as a means of pressurising Hong Kong people to turn against the students. Stopping mainland tours was the first step in this process.
The aim is to make the students appear extreme, isolated and uncaring about the rest of Hong Kong and thus to make it easier for the authorities to eventually crack down on them without attracting a great wave of sympathy as occurred when the police first used tear gas.
As recent events have indicated this is pretty much how this is playing out. However, the students increased the pressure on themselves by blocking roads in Mong Kok, Causeway Bay, Admiralty and Central for longer than was wise. This has lost them a lot of support from people who sympathise with their aims. Increased police aggression in removing barricades is now supported by more of the public.
However, the thuggish beating administered by the police to handcuffed Civic Party member Ken Tsang Kin-chiu was appalling. It was also strategically inept since it obviously works against the government and the police and to the advantage of the protesters. Fortunately nobody has been killed so far. Senior police officers say privately this demonstration has taken a toll on the police and say many of them are angry with the demonstrators. There is obviously considerable support for universal suffrage in Hong Kong. But the students have alienated many of these supporters with many small business owners, restaurant owners and taxi drivers losing money.
The sad thing for those that support the students' aims is that last week they had plenty of public support and could have stopped, having made their point while also warning they would be back if no progress was made in terms of finding a way of broadening the choice of candidates for the 2017 chief executive election. However, it appears to Lai See that the students are frittering away their gains and playing into the hands of the anaconda strategy.