Instead of becoming "next Joshua Wong Chi-fung", most young protesters would likely end up bearing the legal consequences and being forgotten by society, said a former student union president of a Hong Kong university predicting the future of Hong Kong young protesters.
Caspar Wong Chun-long served as the student union president of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and has since devoted his efforts to local youth work following the 2014 Occupy Central Movement.
Wong Chun-long said in an interview with the Global Times Tuesday that the bail of young protest leaders in Hong Kong, such as Wong Chi-fung, and their privileged treatment abroad sent a misleading signal to Hong Kong young protesters: "they can make a name through social movements without taking the consequences."
"Thinking back to the detained young protesters in the 2016 Mong Kok riot, does anyone remember them?" Wong Chun-long said.
He expressed concern that many protesters involved in Hong Kong's ongoing violent protests are middle school students aged 13 to 15.
These young people may think "if Wong Chi-fung was released and went abroad to study and give speeches, I can also go free without taking responsibility" and "the heavier I push ahead in the protests, the more likely foreign countries will shield me."
But the fact is "it is always the anonymous majority that end up bearing the brunt of the consequences," Wong Chun-long pointed out.
Wong Chun-long said, as far as he knew, during the past five years at least half of the Hong Kong students who participated in the Occupy Central Movement went to mainland cities such as Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, to look for jobs and were no longer wild about street politics anymore.
Peaceful demonstration is allowed in Hong Kong, but as the government has replied by shelving the extradition bill, "The topic should have been dropped," Wong Chun-long said.
Making more chaos will only result in more conflicts and worsening the situation, Wong Chunlong said, advising young protesters to "take a longer view and seek cooperation with Hong Kong SAR government to solve some core and urgent problems and create an easier and better future for themselves.
