Xi Jinping's liberal birdcage: Democracy's form and future in Hong Kong

As street demonstrations remain unresolved in Hong Kong (HK) and continue into 2020, this paper assesses the protesters' demand for universal suffrage and governance reform in general. It recounts the path to the current stalemate on political rights for HK's liberal authoritarian regime and, using Freedom House data, traces the growing threat to civil liberties posed by Beijing's covert extra-legal activities. Finally, the paper enumerates the restraints that make direct military intervention unlikely, and suggests how the current demonstrations might end in the coming months. One innovation of this analysis is to add in the forgotten political variable of the Chinese Communist Party's leadership, especially the role of the 2012 transition from Hu Jintao to Xi Jinping.