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Photo by Laurel Chor/Reuters

The pro-democracy forces have five principal demands:

1. To withdraw the extradition bill. (It was “suspended” but there is nothing to prevent its reinstatement.)

2. To stop labelling protesters as “rioters.”

3. To drop charges against protesters.

4. To conduct an independent inquiry into police behaviour.

5. To implement genuine universal suffrage for both the legislative council and the chief executive.

While these may provide a reasonable basis for dialogue and mediation, not much of either has happened. #5 is the real stickler and undoubtedly taboo for Beijing.

China could, if it wished, crush the demonstrations as it did infamously in the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. And it still may any day.

China could, if it wished, crush the demonstrations

Beijing has to be concerned that an injection of political oxygen into Hong Kong could generate similar demands from its own burgeoning middle class. The only real threat to the communist regime is internal pressure for greater political freedom and a crackdown on chronic corruption — the bane of most authoritarian states. The notion that economic growth would spur political liberty in China has not taken root. If anything, there is less political freedom in China today than a decade ago. But events in Hong Kong have to be a source of concern. Beijing is determined to avoid what happened to the Soviet Union in 1991, so restraint undoubtedly has its limits.

The Western democracies, including Canada, have reacted gingerly to events in Hong Kong. Some are more anxious to preserve their commercial links with China than to fight for what they perceive to be a lost cause.