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| From last Sunday demos |
The Chinese is: 光复香港，时代革命，Guangfu Xiang gang, Shidai Geming.
Which they’ve translated as “Free Hong Kong, Revolution Now”. “Free” can also be translated as “Liberate”. And “Revolution Now”, as “revolution of our times” or even “era revolution”.
This slogan was first used in the Occupy Central demos of 2015. It was put out by Liang Tianqi and, as he says, meant to mean something like "people of all ages taking part in innovation and change." Benign, and rather good. in other words. [ref]
Well, as they say these days, it’s been “weaponised”.
The Guangfu (光复) bit, for example, was originally used about Taiwan’s liberation from Japanese occupation in 1945. So what does Hong Kong want to be liberated from?
They claim it’s not for independence, but clearly it is.
And the revolution is no longer “innovation and change”, but something rather more radical. The anarchist symbol is all over, around the graffiti:
