Prof. Talks Causes, Consequences of Umbrella Movement

David Zweig, a social science professor at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, spoke on Thursday about the dangerous “game of chicken” that led to the ongoing Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong and the long-standing socioeconomic inequalities that the month-long pro-democracy protests have highlighted.

The event, which was moderated by retired East Asian professor Ezra F. Vogel, comes about a month after the start of the protests in Hong Kong on Sept. 26 and demonstrations of solidarity on Harvard’s own campus on Oct. 2.

Zweig argued that a “game of chicken” between the Chinese government and the Pan-Democratic camp, in which both sides refused to compromise over their ideals, culminated in the Umbrella Movement protests.

“Nobody wanted to show their full hand,” he said. “The Democrats, the Pan-Democrats, never showed where they would move in terms of negotiations.”

This resistance to compromise between the Chinese government and Hong Kong protesters is, according to Zweig, characteristic of the larger political divide in Hong Kong. A primary disagreement within Hong Kong concerns the minimum threshold of votes necessary for chief executive nomination by Hong Kong’s Election Committee: conservatives argue for a high percentage of votes, whereas the “student position, the radical democratic position, and even the moderate democratic” position calls for universal suffrage with no nominating committee, he said.

The minimum votes threshold was recently set to 50 percent, and Zweig argued that this decision effectively “foreclosed” the Democrats, who can only make up a maximum of 12 percent of the committee in its current form.

This change to 50 percent, he said, was the catalyst for the Occupy Central civil disobedience movement.

“[Chinese government officials in Beijing] knew that they would get Occupy Central if they came out with the 50 percent threshold,” Zweig said. “But they’d rather put up and survive Occupy Central rather than have a chief executive who is not patriotic and doesn’t love China.”

Zweig said that, contrary to arguments by the media and the Pan-Democrats, China has kept its promise under Hong Kong’s Basic Law. “China never promised that there would be no nomination committee,” he said.

Zweig also spoke about the demographics of the movement, characterizing it as student-driven and youth-driven. The movement lacked broad support until the government’s use of tear gas against protesters galvanized opposition, he said.

He wrapped up the event by discussing the socio-economic issues that the Umbrella Movement and Occupy Central have highlighted.

“The conservatives, the tycoons, the business elite can really control the legislature and prevent any kind of social welfare policy,” he said. “Beijing has to realize that they have a social problem—it’s not just a political problem.”

The discussion was part of the Modern Asia Series, sponsored by the Harvard University Asia Center, the Modern Asia Seminar, and the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies.