clyde21 wrote:to be fair, he did say that it's only about 20% seperatists, rest are issues with inequality, immigration, etc.
If we're thinking of the same poster (TGM), he said it was 20% a fight for democracy. Democracy in the context of Hong Kong is not separatism. Hong Kong protestors, the vast majority, anyway, do not want to become an independent nation / separate from China / secede from China.
What the democracy is in the context of the protests is the ability to diretly elect *all* seats of the legislative council, and directly elect leaders for the city (think of it like electing a mayor).
The leader would still have to have the same requirements they do now (such as being of Chinese nationality etc.). <-- this part is important when people try to misrepresent the movement as an "independence" movement. All Hong Kong-born Chinese people have Chinese nationality.
Breaking it down real quick, the way the system works, the Hong Kong people are only able to vote for representatives based on their geographic location (this is called the geographic constituency). This only makes up half the seats in the legislative council.
The other half (functional constituency) is made up by various sectors, and they are guaranteed seats, and the public cannot vote for them directly. Most of them hold pro-Beijing interests (largely due to business).
Just to add to this quickly, Hong Kong people cannot vote for the Chief Executive directly, either. Instead, that is made up of a 1200-member election committee (think political elites, special interest groups, etc.).
One major criticism of this method of election is that the 1200-member committee is often made up of the elite, those with power, who tend to hold pro-Beijing interests.
But all that is moot, anyway, because the only 'candidates' for Chief Executive have to be pre-vetted by Beijing, anyway.
So even *IF* Hong Kong people did have 1 vote per 1 person (currently, their votes work out to a fraction of a vote functionally speaking), it wouldn't matter because they could only vote for people that Beijing will allow, and all candidates Beijing will allow will understandably be sympathetic to Beijing.
The criticism here is that the leader does not represent the people of Hong Kong, but only the businesses of Hong Kong, as well as the government of Beijing.
I hope that contextualizes somewhat Hong Kong protestor's "fight for democracy". They want to be able to vote for all seats in their legislative council, and also vote for any candidate they please, and they want to get rid of the election committee and give 1 person 1 vote.
Edit: To add, I agree with the poster TGM that these protests are about more than just this type of democracy, or even the extradition law.
There is a deep-seeded unhappiness in Hong Kong people about many things in many sectors, most notably the economy and the housing crisis (same as it goes in a lot of places around the world). A lot feel that the government has let them down, and part of that feeling is that the electoral system is letting the down.
However, TGM tried to characterize this unhappiness as being "jealous of their cousins" which is actually one of the popular wumao propaganda lines spread around the internet. It's the same type of drivel as "Hong Kong people used to be more sophisticated than Mainland Chinese, but now can't handle that they aren't" etc.
These kinds of sweeping attacks are, being as generous as possible, extremely broadly applied generalizations, and actually incredibly arrogant and self-absorbed, too.
Imagine thinking that 2 million people took to the streets because they were jealous you had more money than them, and not because they are unhappy with their own government... just lol.