We could all be forgiven for looking at the scenes being played out in Hong Kong and gazing skyward in faint boredom. Have we not, in the space of just five years, watched similar crowd movements in so many of the world’s major cities?

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There was the so-called Green revolution in Tehran after contested elections; Tahrir Square in Cairo, which became the symbol of the misnamed, as we now see it, Arab Spring. There was Tunis, there was Bahrain, there was Tripoli and Benghazi. There was Taksim Square in Istanbul, and two popular uprisings in Kiev – the Orange revolution and most recently Euro-maidan.

How many more times are we going to be called upon to lend our admiration and sympathy to an assembly that may or may not become a fully-fledged revolution? How much more vicarious passion do we have in reserve to support those prepared to lay down their lives for a way of life and a set of principles that many Westerners take for granted and have certainly never had to fight for? If you are bored, or more likely, just exhausted by the spectacle, I would urge you to fix on your electronic screen one more time.

Yesterday was the third day of mass street protests in Hong Kong. The demonstrators – a combination of students and the Occupy movement – managed to immobilise one of the world’s leading financial centres. This was an eventuality barely imagined when the protest began last week. It was widely assumed that people would disperse in time for the working week or, if they did not, that the Chinese authorities would use force, rather than countenance what actually happened: a popular protest bringing China’s equivalent of the City of London to a halt. Even from halfway around the world, you could sense the mix of euphoria, determination and danger that fuelled the protesters’ calculations.

In pictures: Hong Kong democracy protest 2014 Show all 32 1 /32 In pictures: Hong Kong democracy protest 2014 In pictures: Hong Kong democracy protest 2014 Hong Kong protests Pro-democracy protesters make gestures to the police outside Central Government Complex, 1 December EPA In pictures: Hong Kong democracy protest 2014 Hong Kong protests Pro-democracy protesters build barricades at the bottom of an escalator outside Central Government Complex, 1 December Getty In pictures: Hong Kong democracy protest 2014 Hong Kong protests Police and protesters scuffle near the office of the Chief Executive in Hong Kong as clashes erupt again on 1 December Reuters In pictures: Hong Kong democracy protest 2014 Hong Kong protests An injured protester lies prostrate on the ground as chaos surges around her on 1 December AP In pictures: Hong Kong democracy protest 2014 Hong Kong protests Thousands of protesters gathered in Hong Kong's Victoria Square to commemorate the anniversary of Tiananmen Square in June Reuters In pictures: Hong Kong democracy protest 2014 Hong Kong protests A protester raises his umbrellas in front of tear gas fired by riot police in the main street to Hong Kong's financial Central district in September REUTERS In pictures: Hong Kong democracy protest 2014 Hong Kong protests Police officers stand guard during clashes with pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong on September 28, 2014 AFP/Getty In pictures: Hong Kong democracy protest 2014 Hong Kong protests Police officers stand in a cloud of tear gas during a demonstration in Hong Kong on September 28, 2014 AFP/Getty In pictures: Hong Kong democracy protest 2014 Hong Kong protests A demonstrator gestures opposite policemen during a pro-democracy protest in Hong Kong on 28 September 2014 AFP/Getty In pictures: Hong Kong democracy protest 2014 Hong Kong protests A man's face is doused with water after police fired tear gas at protesters on 28 September 2014 Getty In pictures: Hong Kong democracy protest 2014 Hong Kong protests Riot police stand guard outside of the Hong Kong Government Building on 28 September 2014 Getty In pictures: Hong Kong democracy protest 2014 Hong Kong protests A protester walks in tear gas fired by riot policemen on 28 September 2014 Reuters In pictures: Hong Kong democracy protest 2014 Hong Kong protests Protesters hold umbrellas against a line of police officers near the government headquarters in Hong Kong on 28 September 2014 Getty In pictures: Hong Kong democracy protest 2014 Hong Kong protests A protester raises his umbrellas in front of tear gas fired by riot police on 28 September 2014 Reuters In pictures: Hong Kong democracy protest 2014 Hong Kong protests housands of demonstrators storm onto a highway after breaking through police cordons during ongoing pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong on 28 September 2014 Getty In pictures: Hong Kong democracy protest 2014 Hong Kong protests Protesters disperse as riot police fire teargas outside the government headquarters in Hong Kong on 28 September 2014 Reuters In pictures: Hong Kong democracy protest 2014 Hong Kong protests Demonstrators surround cars and block roads on 28 September 2014 Reuters In pictures: Hong Kong democracy protest 2014 Hong Kong protests Police use pepper spray as they clash with protesters jamming the main street to the financial Central district outside the government headquarters in Hong Kong on 28 September 2014 Reuters In pictures: Hong Kong democracy protest 2014 Hong Kong protests Protesters wear masks and goggles to protect themselves from pepper spray while blocking a police car outside the government headquarters on 28 September 2014 AP In pictures: Hong Kong democracy protest 2014 Hong Kong protests Hong Kong media tycoon and pro-democracy supporter Jimmy Lai attends a rally near the government headquarters in Hong Kong on 28 September 2014 AFP In pictures: Hong Kong democracy protest 2014 Hong Kong protests The sign for the Hong Kong central government offices is seen crossed out on 28 September 2014 In pictures: Hong Kong democracy protest 2014 Hong Kong protests Policemen stand behind a fence decorated with yellow ribbons during a demonstration on 28 September 2014 AFP In pictures: Hong Kong democracy protest 2014 Hong Kong protests Hong Kong's Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying (C) and Chief Secretary Carrie Lam (R) attend a press conference in Hong Kong on 28 September 2014 Getty In pictures: Hong Kong democracy protest 2014 Hong Kong protests Food and beverages are provided free to protesters during a demonstration outside the government headquarters in Hong Kong on 28 September 2014 Getty In pictures: Hong Kong democracy protest 2014 Hong Kong protests Protestors tie up barricades during a demonstration outside the headquarters of the Legislative Counsel on 28 September 2014 Getty In pictures: Hong Kong democracy protest 2014 Hong Kong protests Thousands of protesters attend a rally outside the government headquarters in Hong Kong as riot police stand guard on 27 September 2014 Reuters In pictures: Hong Kong democracy protest 2014 Hong Kong protests Students demonstrate against China's decision not to allow a completely free election in Hong Kong in 2017 EPA In pictures: Hong Kong democracy protest 2014 Hong Kong protests Protesters are dragged away by police after storming into government headquarters in Hong Kong on 27 September 2014 Reuters In pictures: Hong Kong democracy protest 2014 Hong Kong protests Protesters clash with riot police in Hong Kong on 27 September 2014 Getty In pictures: Hong Kong democracy protest 2014 Hong Kong protests Students and police clashed in demonstrations against China's decision not to allow a completely free election in Hong Kong in 2017 on 27 September Reuters In pictures: Hong Kong democracy protest 2014 Hong Kong protests A protester holds up placards which reads "Occupy Central" (L) and "Civil Disobedience" (R) Reuters In pictures: Hong Kong democracy protest 2014 Hong Kong protests Protesters chant slogans in front of the police Reuters

What do they want? Specifically, they want Beijing to lift the restrictions it has imposed on who may stand for election in the territory in 2017. More generally, they want pretty much what all the other protesters – from Tehran to Kiev – have said they wanted over the years: democracy and the rule of law. Where this movement is different, however, is that, but for a decision taken by Margaret Thatcher, this Hong Kong generation might already be living in a democracy.

It was Thatcher – though it would probably have been any other British prime minister - who accepted that Hong Kong should revert to China in 1997 on the expiry of Britain’s lease. As a decision of law, it was defensible. In morality, though, it left much to be desired. The judicial argument was that if the UK did not observe the letter of the law, it could not call on others – in this case, China – to do so either. It is true that Hong Kong in those days was far from democratic, but as was frequently argued at the time, there is a difference between the UK’s largely benign overlordship and rule by communist China.

Protesters gather during a demonstration outside headquarters of the Legislative Counsel in Hong Kong

I used to visit Hong Kong in those years, and the leading lights of the democracy movement then are, remarkably, some of the same people as now. The redoubtable duo, Martin Lee and Anson Chan, were in London a few weeks ago, trying to persuade the UK government to show a bit more backbone vis a vis China. They left disappointed; any clout Britain might have had with Beijing as arrangements for the end of the lease were negotiated in the mid-80s (which was not much) is now even less, and London seems even less inclined to use it.

To give the 1980s negotiators their due, the British tried to bequeathe Hong Kong an administrative system that ensured that the territory would not simply be absorbed into China. “One country two systems” was the formula devised, along with electoral complexities that would tax the most legalistic of minds. Gradually, though, the safeguards have been eroded, even as China appeared to recognise that it could not destroy Hong Kong’s relative freedom without killing the goose of international commerce that lays its golden egg.

It is fair to say that the democracy movement of the 1980s was largely intellectual. The protesters of today appear to be cut from different cloth. They came equipped for the siege and tear gas that might meet them. There is a practical determination that did not exist before. Some of the difference can be accounted for by technology, social media and general awareness of the outside world. But maybe there is something else as well.

It is more than 25 years now since I switched on the television in my hotel room in Hong Kong to learn that China’s rulers had sent tanks into Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. The news, and the pictures, shocked the world, but they terrified Hong Kong, which was already committed to returning to Chinese rule. That afternoon, hundreds of thousands of Hong Kongers, individually and in families, dressed in white and proceeded through the streets in a vast, silent, expression of protest.