Beijing's hard line the real cause of the protests
Joseph Wong says the root cause of the street protests is not the lack of universal suffrage per se, but the authorities' uncompromising attitude towards Hong Kong people's aspirations
Both the Beijing and Hong Kong authorities have had more than a year to consider how best to deal with Occupy Central, whose launch became only a matter of time after the National People's Congress Standing Committee set limits on the nominating process for the 2017 chief executive election.
Similar to other democratic movements, it was the students who struck first and fast. They started a class boycott, then held a demonstration outside the government headquarters, and finally broke into the adjacent open area that had been sealed off recently by the administration.
The arrest of student leader Joshua Wong Chi-fung and his 46-hour detention, which a judge, in granting a writ of habeas corpus, criticised as "unreasonably long", were the first signs that the Hong Kong police had decided to play it tough against the protesters.
So when the Occupy Central leaders advanced the demonstrations originally scheduled for October 1, the 65th anniversary of the establishment of the People's Republic of China, the police reacted aggressively, such as by refusing to allow a group of lawmakers to bring amplifiers into the assembly area.
Shortly after Commissioner of Police Andy Tsang Wai-hung reiterated at a press conference that the police would use the minimum level of force necessary to maintain order, a total of 87 canisters of tear gas were fired against the peaceful and unbelieving crowds, among them old people and children. The most "offensive" accessories these people carried were umbrellas, which they used as shields against pepper spray.
To most Hongkongers, the use of tear gas to disperse a peaceful - albeit technically illegal - assembly was the last straw. The public opinion behind the 1.5 million signatures collected by the anti-Occupy Central campaign evaporated instantly. The dramatic images of volleys of tear gas being fired drove many otherwise disinterested people to the streets. Occupy Central and student leaders, who stressed that the movement has become spontaneous with no one in charge, demand the resignation of Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying and the revocation of the NPC Standing Committee decision as conditions for ending the movement.