For months during 2019, Hong Kong was rocked by increasingly violent anti-government protests. Demonstrators focused initially on an unpopular extradition bill that the government seemed determined to legislate despite strong opposition. Authorities eventually withdrew the bill, but by that time street rallies drew protesters numbering in their hundreds of thousands who called for “five demands and not one less.” These demands included a kind of universal suffrage, which for many protesters meant popular, not authority-controlled nominations. The Basic Law, the city’s mini-constitution, identi…
