“Most of these movements have been motivated to some degree by a threat of loss,” said Jonathan Pinckney, a researcher of non-violent resistance and protest at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, who cited the ideologies championed by the Indian activist Mahatma Gandhi. “Movements often start this way, with a defensive demand against a perceived negative change, and then escalate to demanding more substantive change.”

Typically, eruptions of public discontent in the region have featured well-organised, student-led movements that have occupied city streets, said Benjamin Reilly, an expert on democratisation in Asia at the University of Western Australia. “[These protests] utilised the latest in available technology – formerly, mobile phones; today, social networking – and kept going until they had achieved their objective or were repressed, only to achieve their objective a decade later.”

Protest movements in Asia, while not directly connected, have often learned and taken inspiration from each other.

“People learned about movement strategies, and fully realised the importance of raising [their] voices against things they are simply not comfortable with,” said Akihiro Ogawa, a professor at the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute who specialises in civil society. “Those voices are shaping a new dynamism of social movements across Asia, and energising a change in politics.”

South Korea

Since gaining independence in 1948 after decades of Japanese colonial rule and years of US military government, South Korea has developed a rich protest culture. The first example of this was the April Revolution of 1960, when more than 100,000 student-led protesters stormed the presidential Blue House, demanding the resignation of President Syngman Rhee, who had been in post since the country’s founding.

The gruesome death of a high school student at the hands of local police in southern Masan city served as the catalyst for the protests; but ultimately, widespread public dissatisfaction with the government, endemic corruption, and the use of police violence was what kept them going.

The April Revolution resulted in Rhee’s resignation and subsequent exile to Hawaii. Echoes of his downfall can be seen in the impeachment and arrest of former president Park Geun-hye following the Candlelight Revolution of 2016.

In 1987, what became known as the June Democracy Movement forced then-president Chun Doo-hwan to introduce direct elections and restore civil liberties after decades of military dictatorship. Millions of Koreans mobilised in a series of protests across several cities to demand the introduction of democratic reforms.

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With South Korea poised to host its first-ever Summer Olympics only a year later in 1988, the government was well aware that violently suppressing the protests would only reflect poorly on the nation.

Jumin Lee, a Korean lawyer and politics blogger living in the US, said the country’s history of protest helped keep governments in check.

“Korean politicians are already pathologically afraid of protests,” he said.

“Even more than its economic development, the most remarkable thing about modern Korean history is that [people] from a country with no tradition of democratic institutions prior to 1948 rose up again and again to fight for the rights and freedoms they had barely had time to get used to.”

Philippines

In 1986, The Philippines’ People Power Revolution – also known as the Yellow Revolution – toppled the infamously profligate dictator Ferdinand Marcos. The movement began as a series of demonstrations with more than two million Filipinos marching against the regime’s violence, corruption and fraud.

The mass protests forced Marcos to flee the country and take up exile in Hawaii, bringing to an end his 21 years of authoritarian rule. On the same day, Corazon Aquino, widely seen as the rightful winner of an earlier election that was marred by reports of tampering, was inaugurated as president of the Philippines. In office, Aquino, the widow of assassinated opposition leader Benigno Aquino Jnr, oversaw the introduction of the 1987 Constitution, which curbed the powers of the presidency and devolved more authority to parliament.

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“In the case of the Philippines, what has normally mobilised people to go out in the streets in the recent past was issues related to graft and corruption committed by high ranking government officials, human rights violations and threats to basic freedoms,” said Maria Ela L. Atienza, a professor of political science at the University of the Philippines Diliman.

Malaysia

Beginning in 2007, Malaysia’s Bersih rallies united opposition parties and NGOs by calling for electoral reform to end the effective one-party rule of the Barisan Nasional, which had dominated the country’s politics since its independence in 1957.

Follow-up rallies took place in 2011, 2012, 2015 and 2016. Although the protesters did not see their demands for reforms met at the time, the Pakatan Harapan coalition did sweep to power in a general election last year, ushering in the first new government in the country’s history.

“The groundbreaking 2018 election in Malaysia, which successfully toppled the ruling coalition, was partly the positive result of the years of rallies organised by the Bersih movement,” said Deasy Simandjuntak, an associate fellow at the ISEAS - Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore.

Indonesia

Indonesia’s Reformasi movement began in 1998 amid growing dissatisfaction with military dictator Suharto’s authoritarian rule, corruption and the state of the economy in the wake of a regional financial crisis the year before. While initially peaceful, the student-led protests quickly spiralled into violent unrest, including widespread rioting and looting, after police shot dead a number of demonstrators.

“This painful process led to the further democratic transition in Indonesia, including the removal of the military from the parliament, the banning of serving officers from politics, and a wide range of decentralisation measures as a cure from Suharto’s centralisation,” said Deasy, of the ISEAS - Yusof Ishak Institute.

Taiwan

After decades of one-party rule following its independence from Japan in 1945, Taiwan underwent a series of democratic reforms during the 1980s. But it was not until the Wild Lily student movement of 1990, which saw tens of thousands of demonstrators demand the direct election of Taiwan’s president and vice-president, that democratic reform gained unstoppable momentum.

Taiwan held its first direct presidential elections in 1996, resulting in the return to power of incumbent Lee Teng-hui.

In 2014, the self-ruled island also saw the rise of the Sunflower Student Movement in opposition to a controversial trade agreement with mainland China, which galvanised fears about Beijing’s creeping encroachment. The pro-unification Kuomintang, which pushed for the pact, suffered heavy defeats in subsequent local and general elections. ■