Time for pan-democrats to stop mistaking wishful thinking for idealism

With the end of Occupy Central, it was hoped that the city would return to normal. Yet it is not normal. The debate that caused the movement has continued and its resolution is no closer now than it was on August 31, when the central government issued its decision on Hong Kong electoral reform.

Beijing's resolve is as strong as ever, the community remains divided and politicians of all complexions seem incapable of addressing Hong Kong's political future. Interests are deeply entrenched and the same old arguments continue to be rehearsed. Different thinking is needed to create a future for both young and old, otherwise the city will always be captured by those whose vision is in the past rather than by a vision of Hong Kong's evolving democratic future.

This is not to say the students got it wrong. They didn't. They seized a moment, but - in their own words - with little thought and even less strategy. They energised otherwise passive citizens because their initial treatment by the police seemed out of proportion with their actions. Young, exuberant and idealistic, the students put their all into having the August 31 decision reversed.

Others caught onto their coat-tails, but there was never an appreciation or even understanding that when Western democratic values meet the authoritarian state, only one side can win. There is no negotiation, accommodation or compromise: it is about winning. In this case, the authoritarian state won, but you could never tell from listening and watching much community discourse.

There are now ongoing "strategies" of resistance: television images of pan-democrats symbolically tearing up the government's report to Beijing on public sentiment in Hong Kong during the Occupy movement, legislators declaring they will veto the government's proposal for universal suffrage to elect the chief executive in 2017, and suggestions that government bills be paid in small amounts in order to disrupt the administration of government. But to what end? What do Hong Kong's democrats now want?

They want Chief Executive Leung Chin-ying's resignation and they still want the reversal of the August 31 decision. How the first is related to political reform is not clear and, in any event, Leung is now more than ever a Beijing favourite, having resisted the forces of democracy in the city; and they have already been defeated on the second.

And what is on offer if they do not get their way? Community projects will be held up in the Legislative Council, financial subventions to key bodies in the city will be deferred and, best of all, by defeating the government's proposal for political reform, Hong Kong will be stuck with the election of its chief executive by a small and unrepresentative nominating committee. Democracy will be off the agenda - not just the "genuine" democracy supported by students but even the less-than-genuine democracy approved by the National People's Congress Standing Committee.