Protesters must be clear on goal of universal suffrage

"Take a walk on the street and you can find the true Hong Kong spirit: the discipline and order, the impressive ability of the people to self-organise and protest in a way that is peaceful and rational," Hong Kong-based journalist Zhang Jieping wrote in an article on Occupy Central. "Voices were raised in song, and the shops around were friendly. At night, the students and police officers both were seen clearing away rubbish left from the day."

After more than 10 days of a civil disobedience protest in which students first boycotted class then took to blocking major roads, the protesters have held onto their Hong Kong way. This, despite tolerating the tear gas attacks and threats of worse.

This is rare in street protests in other parts of the world. Perhaps a close comparison is the Tiananmen democracy movement 25 years ago. The streets weren't as clean then but the protesters were similarly disciplined. In one instance, three young people who vandalised the Mao Zedong portrait hanging there were caught and taken to the police station by the students themselves.

Of course, there is a key difference: whereas the Hong Kong students are orderly from force of habit, the students at Tiananmen were regulating themselves out of fear, because they did not want to give the Beijing government any excuse to crack down on their campaign.