Analysis | Generation gap hampers efforts to direct Occupy protests in Hong Kong

A generation gap and different expectations about how the occupation campaign should evolve have pulled student leaders and Occupy Central organisers apart. It has left students - the only group now leading the civil disobedience movement - unwilling to compromise.

Occupy Central co-founder Dr Chan Kin-man, who returned to his job at Chinese University last week, said he and fellow organisers considered an incremental and pragmatic approach in the fight for "genuine universal suffrage" acceptable as they were aware of political constraints.

"We believe the campaign has achieved our original goal of awakening the young generation. But students want to see real and fundamental changes in our political system, instead of a public education campaign," he said.

In talks on October 21, Chief Secretary Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor told leaders of the Federation of Students that the government would submit a report to the State Council's Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office to reflect public sentiment since the protests began on September 28.

The government would also consider setting up a platform for dialogue on constitutional development beyond 2017. But the proposals failed to satisfy student leaders, who insisted that Beijing retract its decision to place tight restrictions on Hong Kong's electoral methods.

"We told student leaders to take the government's proposals more seriously as they are more concrete than what officials offered previously," Chan said.