Perspectives on the Occupy Central Movement

Abstract

The Occupy Central Movement (OCM) was launched on September 28, 2014. This movement was initiated by law professor Benny Tai, sociologist Chan Kin-man and religious priest Chu Yiu-ming in early 2013, and commenced after student democrats, such as Joshua Wong Chi-fung, Alex Chou and Lester Shum, were arrested and detained by the police for plunging into the government’s headquarters in the Admiralty on the night of September 26. The OCM was dubbed the “Umbrella Revolution” by the foreign mass media; nevertheless, the student democrats quickly denied that it was a revolution aimed at toppling the government led by Chief Executive C. Y. Leung. Instead they regarded it as a “movement” propelling the pace and scope of democratization in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR). The OCM, however, ended in mid-December 2014 as public opinion turned increasingly against its initiators and participants (see Table 4.1). This chapter examines the origins of and perspectives on the OCM, and how the movement is related to the struggle for democratization in Hong Kong under the Chinese sovereignty.