Read: The U.S. is about to do something big on Hong Kong

Yet this has been just the latest in a series of misreadings of public sentiment. “It's a fantasy,” Alvin Yeung, a pro-democracy lawmaker, told me this week on the 100th day of demonstrations. Government officials who believe that “are extremely out of touch,” he added. The protests have dramatically expanded in scope and ferocity since they began in the spring, with frequent clashes between demonstrators and police. More than 1,400 people have been arrested since June. Lam’s decision, which also included beefing up the city’s police oversight board, was met with hostility. The slogan “five demands, not one less” lit up the messaging apps and forums where rallies are organized. Demonstrations have continued unabated since Lam’s concessions with even more planned as October 1, the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, draws near.

“Students are very angry,” Siu told me, as we sat in a coffee shop earlier this month. “Everybody in Hong Kong is very angry.” We met a day before a mass rally to mark the start of a two-week class boycott across universities in Hong Kong. She spoke with sustained intensity for nearly an hour, her phone untouched, a notable achievement as a protest at Hong Kong’s airport was growing and updates on demonstrations ping across messaging apps almost constantly. Dressed entirely in black, the uniform of this summer’s protests, the 20-year-old had pinned a violet-colored ribbon to her T-shirt in a show of solidarity with a female protester who alleged that she was put through a humiliating strip search by police after being arrested at a demonstration. Police, the focus of much of the protesters’ ire in recent weeks, have denied any wrongdoing in the incident and have rejected accusations of inappropriate use of force.

Siu first took part in Hong Kong’s protests in 2014, when the Umbrella Movement called for comprehensive universal suffrage here. She watched as the government refused to budge, then set about exacting a measure of revenge—relentlessly pursuing protest leaders through the courts and disqualifying those who stood in elections. Her beliefs, she explained, shifted in the years that followed from more moderate positions to advocating for Hong Kong’s independence from China. As her political views evolved, so did her thoughts on protest methods. “I realized that peaceful demonstrations and protests might not be the way out,” she said.

Whereas the Umbrella Movement was characterized by a largely peaceful occupation of thoroughfares in Hong Kong, these latest rallies have been more aggressive, on the part of both police and protesters, including students. Siu and the City University students’ union help connect arrested students with lawyers, and the night before our meeting had been particularly busy. Scores of people were arrested when police stormed a subway station before charging into a train car, beating commuters and protesters seemingly at random. Among those grabbed by police was the president of another university’s student union.