It has been over three months since Hong Kong’s summer of protests began on June 9 with one million of the city’s residents taking to the streets to march against a controversial extradition Bill. It would be longer if sporadic protests against the Bill that began in March are taken into account. However, June 9 marked the start of weekly protests that were largely peaceful at first but have since descended into confrontation and violent clashes with police, as small groups of more radical protesters refused to leave the scene or blocked the streets. Some protesters broke into the Legislative Council building and vandalised it on July 1, the anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to Chinese rule under the one country, two systems principle that guarantees the city a high level of autonomy. Protesters have also thrown the Chinese flag into the sea and lobbed petrol bombs at police, who used tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannon to disperse them. Some of the protesters’ actions are criminal and the perpetrators should be dealt with by the law.

The turmoil of the past three months has begun to take its toll on the city’s economy and tear into its social fabric, and it will cause more long-term damage if it continues unabated. It is time to take a long, hard look at how things got this far – and what could be the way forward. Hong Kongers of all ages and walks of life have marched and are marching to protest at first against the Bill that would have allowed criminal suspects from the city to be sent to the mainland to be tried, but later also to demand greater democracy. Many Hong Kongers have been brought up to oppose communism and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) by their parents, many of whom had come from the mainland from the 1940s to 1970s to escape the CCP regime, and went to schools that taught democracy and liberalism. As China tightens control over Hong Kong, it is inevitable that protests will erupt. If it was not the extradition Bill, it would be something else. For instance, if the anti-sedition Bill that was withdrawn in 2003 because of widespread opposition were to be revived, Hong Kongers are likely to take to the streets in even larger numbers than 16 years ago. Beijing and the Hong Kong government, for their part, have been inflexible and unyielding, thus contributing to the escalation of the turmoil.