Umbrella - A Political Tale from Hong Kong by Kong Tsung-Gan

mbrella: A Political Tale from Hong Kong is the first comprehensive account of the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement. It examines in detail the 2014 campaign for genuine universal suffrage, situating it within the contexts of the history of the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement, Hong Kong's relationship with China, recent developments in nonviolent resistance struggles globally, and democratization theory. The occupations of three hubs of Hong Kong lasted 79 days, the longest continuous mass demonstrations to occur in any major world city in modern history. What triggered them? Why did they last so long? What were they fighting for? What did they achieve? The tale is divided into five parts: 1) how the occupations began; 2) their immediate and historical backgrounds; 3) the occupations themselves; 4) the period after the occupations and up to the defeat of the fake universal suffrage plan of the Chinese and Hong Kong governments in June 2015; and 5) an assessment of the movement, an overview of the many rapidly occurring developments in its wake, and a discussion of the outlook for democracy and self-determination in Hong Kong. Told from a pro-democracy perspective, in solidarity with the millions of Hong Kong people who have fought for their civil and political rights down through the years, Umbrella also looks critically at the limitations, weaknesses and errors of the movement while portraying the Chinese Communist Party as implacably hostile to popular sovereignty and the Hong Kong government and elites as its accomplices. The global struggle between democracy and authoritarianism will determine the direction of the world over the coming decades. Hong Kong is part of that struggle.