Panel discussion held on Hong Kong protests

by Katie Vloet, November 24, 2014

The current pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong—symbolized by yellow ribbons and opened umbrellas—have grown from deep historical roots and have illuminated emerging schisms in the city, three authorities on China said during a talk at Michigan Law.

“One of the underlying issues, said Mary Gallagher, professor of political science at U-M and director of the Lieberthal Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, is that there is no way for the pan-democratic forces in the Hong Kong SAR to become the ruling party in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR)’s Legislative Council (LegCo), even though it tends to win the popular vote in geographical electoral constituencies that are subject to direct voting.

’The system creates an opposition party that doesn’t have any way to win [control of LegCo], which creates a lot of political frustration within Hong Kong,’ she said.”