THE pro-democracy protests that have gripped Hong Kong since late September have reached an impasse that appears to suit the territory’s government and its backers in Beijing. As The Economist went to press, the streets were no longer filled with tens of thousands of demonstrators. Many had grown too tired, and some too dispirited, to carry on.

Student leaders are eager to consolidate the sympathy they gained on September 28th, when police used tear gas on demonstrators, and on October 3rd, when pro-government thugs began provoking scuffles with protesters. They have therefore agreed to talks with the government, even though officials have shown no sign of willingness to make any concessions. Much-reduced numbers of demonstrators still block a few roads, but the government seems inclined to let them. The longer protesters do so, it apparently believes, the more they risk losing support among those whose lives are disrupted.

Some on the government’s side say the students’ scorn for the governments in Hong Kong and Beijing proves that truly competitive democracy would not work because it might produce a leader who does not get on with the central leadership. Tsang Yok-sing, the president of the Legislative Council (Legco), says the protests “will only convince China that they have made a correct decision” to restrict political freedoms.

Even some allies of the students worry that the government may be making the right bet. “Your bargaining chip is public opinion. It’s not the road out there,” says Claudia Mo, a pro-democracy legislator, sitting inside her office at the Legco building which is still surrounded by a few hundred demonstrators. “This movement cannot afford to lose public support,” she says.

Yet the students may have more backing than was apparent during recent outbreaks of heckling of protesters by angry residents. Researchers at Hong Kong Polytechnic University found that 59% of 850 people surveyed since October 4th believed the territory should reject the national government’s plan for the election of Hong Kong’s chief executive in 2017. This arrangement, which was announced at the end of August, would limit candidates to those approved by a nominating committee of 1,200 people, most of whom would be Hong Kong-based supporters of the Communist Party. The protesters say anyone should be allowed to stand.

In the recent opinion poll 60% of respondents blamed the violence on one or the other of the police, thugs (some of whom were alleged by police to be members of triads, or criminal gangs) or Leung Chun-ying, the territory’s chief executive. The largest proportion, nearly 29%, blamed Mr Leung, whose resignation the protesters have been demanding.

Support like this will be needed if, as seems almost certain, the Chinese government refuses to revise its electoral arrangements and the student leaders respond, as they have threatened to do, by keeping up their campaign of disruptive civil disobedience. The announcement on October 7th that students and government officials would begin talks three days later was a relief to both sides. Twice in the preceding five days they had seemed close, at least in their rhetoric, to potentially bloody confrontation. The first time was on the evening of October 2nd, when hundreds of students threatened to break into Mr Leung’s offices and hundreds of police stood ready to resist (the students eventually thought better of it). The next time was on the morning of October 6th, when the government threatened to use force to clear the streets for the beginning of a regular working week after a week in which students had taken advantage of a two-day public holiday to draw out more supporters (the government instead decided that patience was a more potent weapon).

But the talks are likely to be little more than a respite. The government refuses to negotiate over how to elect the territory’s leader. That, it says, is up to the central authorities, who have said they will not budge. Officials in Beijing have condemned the protests as the handiwork of pro-Western, anti-China forces. Nor do many believe that any compromise, such as in the composition of the nominating committee, could satisfy the students.

The protesters have few illusions. One negotiator-to-be, Lester Shum, denounced the Hong Kong government as “insincere” even as he announced his willingness to talk. At a protest site near the main government complex, one of the students’ most charismatic and widely admired leaders, Joshua Wong, who is 17, told demonstrators to bring more bedding. Some students, exhausted though they are, are determined to stay on the streets.

It is not just the protesters who are tired. Days after a student boycott of classes unpredictably morphed into an “Umbrella revolution” (named after the protesters’ protection against rain, police pepper-spray and tear gas), many residents are weary. Police have worked several days of 18-hour shifts. Taxi drivers and shop-owners are fed up with losing business.

But the students look as if they will remain a powerful force. They share grievances with many others in Hong Kong, including their worried parents, about inequality and about wealthy mainlanders buying up their property, filling prized spots in elite schools and taking the best jobs. Many fear the possible encroachment of the party’s authoritarian values on Hong Kong’s way of life, which is meant to be protected by a “one country, two systems” arrangement, promised by China when Britain handed back control of the territory in 1997. The pro-democracy camp has been riled by a report this week that Mr Leung had received large payments from an Australian engineering firm. Mr Leung has denied any wrongdoing.

Regina Ip, a former security chief in Hong Kong who is now a pro-establishment legislator, admits that Hong Kong’s return to China “didn’t get off to a very good smooth start”. That includes the time when she herself tried to help push through a security law more than a decade ago, provoking massive demonstrations. On October 8th, wearing a dress and blazer combination that (seemingly as a tease) resembled an umbrella in the protest movement’s colours of black and yellow, she acknowledged the “inherent contradictions” of Hong Kong’s union with China. Ms Ip sees more battles ahead.