Letters | Hong Kong protesters are angry – but is it a cry for freedoms or nativist bigotry?

Of course we know the “five demands” that must be delivered, and “not one less”. But I believe there is rather more to it than that, judging by the words of protesters themselves. There is a strong tinge of nativism in their anger.

“Their yearnings, as revealed on social media, imagine a Hong Kong where people speak Cantonese, patronise family-run shops and not chain stores and pharmacies catering to mainland Chinese tourists, and care for one another as neighbours in close-knit communities.”

In any other country, in any other context, this would be criticised as nativist bigotry. Recently the comedian John Cleese was savaged for suggesting that London is “not really an English city any more”; this is exactly the same sentiment we see above.