Likelihood of a 'mini-Tiananmen' worries government, Regina Ip says

The potential for a "mini-Tiananmen" movement to evolve from pro-democracy class boycotts at local secondary schools and universities worries the government, a former chief of the Security Bureau says.

Suspicions have also been aroused in the corridors of power that the students are becoming a tool for Occupy Central to boost its fight for genuine universal suffrage, because it has failed to mobilise support from the middle class, according to executive councillor Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee.

But she doubts the pressure will succeed in making Beijing cave in and retract a reform framework laid down on August 31 - ruling out a genuine choice of candidates for voters in the 2017 chief executive poll - despite the political tensions weighing on the Hong Kong government.

Ip told the South China Morning Post of prevailing sentiments in the government last week while the class boycotts were in full swing, ahead of the formal launch of Occupy's first operation yesterday.

"On the face of it, the students are voicing their demands for democracy and self-determination," Ip said.

"I think the worry on the part of the Hong Kong government is, what if it becomes a mini-Tiananmen? Who is behind it?"

That movement 25 years ago was initiated by students to push for a democratic China, but it ended abruptly when the People's Liberation Army moved in on protesters at Beijing's Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989. Hundreds, perhaps more than 1,000, were killed.