30 Time February 3, 2020
AT 15 yeArs old, yAnnus is Too young To drive
a car, buy a beer or donate blood. But he says he
is willing to give his life in the “final battle” for
Hong Kong.
“Maybe I will die for this movement,” he says, at
the edge of one of the pitched battles that demon-
strations have frequently become over the past eight
months. As protesters beside him pour Molotov cock-
tails, the teenager straps on a motor cycle helmet to
hide his face from cameras and facial- recognition
software. Like every protester TIME spoke with,
Yannus gave a pseudonym out of concern for his
safety. But in his pocket he keeps a handwritten will,
addressed to his parents and friends. “I’m ready,” he
says, tapping it.
Young people around the world, in the Middle East
and Latin America and beyond, are railing against
sclerotic regimes, economic frustrations and back-
sliding democracy. In Hong Kong, a semi autonomous
enclave of China with liberal traditions, the protest-
ers are seeking to “reclaim” their city from authori-
tarianism. At the movement’s core are high school
and university students who cast themselves as urban
street fighters, willing to gamble away their futures
if it helps preserve their home.
When marchers first took to the streets in June,
they had one goal: the withdrawal of a proposed bill
that would have allowed extraditions to mainland
China. The legislation was eventually scrapped, but
the demands broadened amid growing fears that Bei-
jing is eroding the unique freedoms—of press, as-
sembly, speech—that differentiate this cosmopoli-
tan hub of 7.5 million from the rest of China. The
endgame remains murky, with no consensus among
protesters over whether to ultimately seek indepen-
dence, universal suffrage or some other semblance of
greater autonomy. For now, they have rallied around
a common enemy.
November brought not a climax but a crescendo,
when police besieged two university campuses where
protesters had barricaded themselves with stockpiled
weapons, including bows, arrows and meat cleavers.
In daring escapes, students abseiled down multi-
story buildings to waiting motor cyclists or swam out
through sewers. The standoff gave way to relative
calm during local elections on Nov. 24 in which pro-
democracy candidates won a landslide. But the rallies
continue, intermittent and vast. Organizers contend
1 million gathered on New Year’s Day to show anger
at the police’s handling of the unrest. The city’s Chief
Executive, Carrie Lam, conceded on Jan. 7 that pro-
test violence will persist this year.
To end the upheaval, the city’s government has
two options, says Andrew Junker, a sociologist at
the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Either they
can “arrest their way out of it,” he says, or they can
give in to some of the protest demands, like a formal
investigation into alleged police brutality. Without
political concessions, he warns, insurgency “is the
logical outcome.”
Many of Hong Kong’s young combatants already
say they would rather be martyrs than inmates, es-
pecially when convictions for offenses such as arson
can lead to life sentences in prison. “I would rather
die than be arrested,” says Calvin, 21. “If I die, at least
the fury would sustain this movement.”Calvin Considers himself part of Hong Kong’s
so-called chosen generation, poised to collide with an
increasingly assertive Beijing. Born around the time
the U.K. ceded control of its colony in 1997, this Hong
Kong generation barely identifies with the world’s
ascendant superpower, mostly seeing it as a threat
to their way of life. Beijing agreed to maintain Hong
Kong’s separate legal and political systems only until- Those who expect to be in late middle age by
then fear they have the most to lose if the freewheel-
ing city fails to preserve its autonomy.
On top of that, Hong Kong is one of the world’s
most expensive cities, where economic inequality
World“We front liners
are just a group
of students, born
in Hong Kong. We
have no training
or professional
knowledge. I
won’t reveal
how much I’ve
escalated my use
of violence, or
any future plans,
but I absolutely
will not back
down.”
—SYLVIA, 23Previous page
“Only when
there is chaos in
society does the
government pay
some attention
to our demands.
I think that all
police are the
same. Maybe I
hate them too
much, but I think
that whatever
protesters do,
whether they
slash their necks
or whatever, I
think there’s no
problem.”
—JANE, 21