A look at Asia’s biggest student-led protests from South Korea to Thailand to Hong Kong

Asia has never had a single defining moment like the Arab spring but has a rich history of student-driven movements against authoritarianism

The parallels have not been lost on Hong Kong protesters, who recently translated a South Korean protest song into Cantonese

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South Korean students disperse as tear gas is fired by riot police in this file photo. Photo: Reuters

Published: 6:00pm, 23 Oct 2019Updated: 10:13am, 24 Oct 2019

As a college student, Lee Kyung-lan grew adept at assembling Molotov cocktails using paint thinner and soju bottles and learned that wearing a mask stuffed with toothpaste-laden tissue made tear gas more bearable, even if it wouldn’t help with blistering on her skin.

Week after week, she took to the streets with classmates and chanted at the top of her lungs: for democracy, for direct elections, for constitutional reform. The students sketched out battle plans against riot police on pieces of paper they passed around, memorised, then burned. Twice, she was arrested. Once, her head was rammed against the side of a truck by police.

An anti-government student protester falls on his own fire bomb during a battle with riot police in Seoul in this file photo. Photo: AFP

That was the 1980s in South Korea, then ruled by an army general who took power in a military coup.

Three decades later, the streets of Hong Kong are looking a lot like South Korea did in the 1980s. Young protesters leading the charge and a restless populace coming to their support. Increasingly violent clashes with riot police. An unrelenting authoritarian government with formidable military might.

Students are also at the forefront of recent widespread protests in Indonesia against new laws that demonstrators say weaken the country’s anti-corruption agency and against plans to criminalise and increase punishment for sexual activities. At least two have been killed in clashes with police, in some of the biggest protests since a student-led uprising in 1998 that toppled strongman Suharto.