WHATEVER became of Hong Kong’s Occupy movement? Three years ago thousands of people, most of them young, staged 79 remarkable days of sit-ins in some of the Chinese territory’s busiest districts. They were calling for the genuinely universal suffrage that China had seemed to promise Hong Kong when Britain handed it back in 1997. It was an unprecedented display of civil disobedience, a challenge not just to the local government but to the Communist Party itself in distant Beijing.

“Occupy Central with Love and Peace” was conceived by a Hong Kong priest and two academics as a protest against stunted proposals for political reform that had recently been unveiled. The three had organised an unofficial “civic referendum” to gauge public opinion in favour of Hong Kongers being able, in 2017, directly to nominate candidates for the chief executive of the territory and to choose the winner. They had then threatened to block streets if the authorities ignored the result. It was enthusiastic students who turned the idea into a mass campaign, starting with class boycotts and leading to the occupation of streets around the government’s offices and farther afield. Young protesters, camping out with their homework stations and yellow umbrellas, drew admiration. Despite some initial heavy-handed behaviour by the police, which only generated more popular support for the students, the protests were generally peaceful.

But what is there to show for them now? By the time the protests sputtered out (amid grumbling by some Hong Kongers that they were disrupting business), Hong Kong’s then chief executive, “C.Y.” Leung Chun-ying, had conceded nothing. This year, Carrie Lam, formerly the head of the civil service, replaced Mr Leung, after a selection process that remained tightly choreographed by the party in Beijing. Ms Lam insists this is no time for another debate about expanding democracy. Meanwhile, the central government’s representative in the territory, the Liaison Office, has abandoned all pretence at staying behind the scenes. It is a parallel government (as well as a source of business patronage), further undermining Hong Kong’s promised autonomy.

Nothing, apparently, to show for all that youthful energy, then. Three of Occupy’s student organisers are serving prison terms of six to eight months for unlawful assembly. The three who conceived of Occupy face charges too. Half a dozen pro-democracy legislators have been turfed out of office on trumped-up technicalities. And the pan-democratic camp is riven between traditional democrats calling for the autonomy promised in the Basic Law, China’s mini-constitution for Hong Kong, and more radical “localists”, some of whom espouse outright independence.

Many Hong Kongers with democratic leanings think that, by antagonising the party, the protests harmed Hong Kong’s interests. A return to the street gridlock of three years ago would certainly anger many ordinary people trying to go about their daily lives. There is considerable public disdain for the growing stridency of some pro-democracy campaigners. Before he went to jail, even one of the student organisers, Joshua Wong, told The Economist that Hong Kong was suffering from protest fatigue.

Yet this is not the end of the matter. For one thing, the central government appears blind to the effect its hard line is having in Hong Kong. The growth in pro-independence feeling appears to be a reaction to Hong Kong’s constricted political space, and to a sense that the territory’s own uniqueness is being undermined. The authorities should worry that the generation of Hong Kongers with the strongest sense of “localism” is the one that has grown up only under Chinese rule. The polling is thin, but suggests that perhaps more than half of university students believe that democracy is impossible under “one country, two systems”, China’s formula for Hong Kong. They see independence as the solution. Banners calling for it appeared on campuses at the start of the university term in September. Football fans boo when the national anthem is played at matches in Hong Kong.

It is therefore only a matter of time before there is another clash of wills between the party and Hong Kong’s people. Already there are rumblings of one: when the pro-independence banners were removed from campuses, many students complained about infringement of their right to free speech. Ms Lam, perhaps sensibly, steered clear of sensitive political issues in her first policy address on October 11th.

Ominously, parts of the mainland’s state-run media are calling for Hong Kong to enact anti-sedition laws, as the territory’s government is required to under Article 23 of the post-colonial constitution. When it tried to do so in 2003, hundreds of thousands took to the streets in protest, leading to the laws being shelved and to the early departure of the then chief executive. Then, the laws’ opponents were branded in Beijing as pesky democrats. Were Ms Lam to revive such attempts, opponents would be condemned not simply as democrats but as dangerous separatists. The scene would be set for an ugly stand-off. During the Occupy unrest China’s leader, Xi Jinping, declared the protests “illegal”, but left Hong Kong to deal with them. Next time, with the stakes higher, he may take a more aggressive approach.

The golden thread

Chinese officials urge Hong Kong to return to being an “economic” city. Whatever that means: the idea of an apathetic populace interested only in material gain is fanciful. A long and admirable history shows Hong Kongers persistently demanding more say in their affairs—starting under colonial rule in the 1960s and 1970s when they organised against poor living conditions, inferior education and rampant corruption. Stephen Vines, a local commentator, speaks of a “golden thread” that runs through these early protests to the more recent ones. Mr Xi hasn’t heard the last of Hong Kong. Those who were politically baptised during the Occupy movement will be around longer than he will.