[pasiaj]

Everything you say seems correct.

The problem is that movements without specific, clearly defined policy goals tend to fail.

It is easy to come together to oppose some bad thing, but it is really hard to find consensus on what to do after the bad thing has been defeated. So while movements without specific policy goals can win elections, the usually cannot bring effective change.

Is independence the goal here?

[Multicomp]

That's what's different about this protest, there in fact five basic demands that they have been pretty consistent with.

The first demand that originally sparked the protest was to have the extradition to China bill officially withdrawn, not simply referred to as dead yet left in legal suspension but still theoretically possible to push through as soon as the protesters went home.

The second demand is to have all of the people who were officially declared as rioters to be officially declared as peaceful protesters on a protest from early June because people who are declared rioters can face up to 10 years in prison. These protesters were once occupying the legislative house and even though they were graffitiing the walls with slogans, people went around and posted papers on refrigerators holding drinks and foods that said 'we are protesters not thieves' and no one took any of the food. Talk about being polite. Yet they were declared rioters (ok clearly I've come to a conclusion)

The third demand is for Hong Kong's chief executive Carrie Lam to resign.

The fourth demand is for an independent commission to be formed to investigate police brutality as alleged by the protesters during the protests over the last 10 weeks. Heavy use of tear gas and rubber bullets.

The fifth demand is for all protesters to be unconditionally freed.

I'd recommend reading https://www.hongkongfp.com to keep up with what's going on in HK. I've followed it since May and it has been quite insightful.

[jddj]

It's made more difficult (partly due to the lessons learned from the umbrella movement) because this has been a leaderless movement, which while making it difficult to disappear the people managing it, also must make it more difficult for defined policy goals to form (although some have emerged).

It seems to be developing organically as the people come to understand how much momentum they have and how much their peers agree with their frustrations.

I'd speculate that if they somehow gained enough momentum that it appeared to be within reach then independence would probably be the end goal, but who knows.

[pasiaj]

I searched and found the five demands:

one, the bill must be withdrawn; two, the chief executive must resign; three, the government must retract its characterisation of the violent clashes as “riots”; four, there must be a full independent inquiry into the actions of the police and; five, everyone arrested in respect of the clashes must be unconditionally freed.

More here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Hong_Kong_anti-extraditio...

[culturestate]

This movement (which has been building for years) has one very specific goal: true universal suffrage and free elections. Whether that comes as a protectorate of China or as an independent state seems almost inconsequential to many people.

Everything else (extradition, the five demands, et cetera) is just a series of sub-plots leading to self governance.

[pishpash]

They had that chance in 2014, but rejected all compromise or incremental improvement.

[culturestate]

Elections aren't free if you can only vote for candidates that have the government's blessing.

[pishpash]

Ask the question whether CE being elected with more direct votes is a better or worse outcome than now. There is an element in HK that only has one possibility in mind, ending up with nothing. That's called extremism.

[culturestate]

It would be exactly the same outcome with different numbers. Do you really believe the CCP would allow someone like John Tsang to run in a situation where he might actually win? Of course not.

[hdkrgr]

While there's certainly small parts of protesters whose aim is independence, the movement at large has very clearly communicated 5 well-defined demands since the end of June and by and large stuck with them.