The protesters are asking for something much bigger than Western-style democracy, which we know is pretty dysfunctional right now, whether in Europe or America, where voters are angry with established political parties and their institutionalized corruption by big money. You could argue that they are arguing for social democracy — from a nominally Communist regime!

I do believe the mainstream within the Chinese Communist Party did learn the lesson 25 years ago. And I do believe that most of them don’t want to send the PLA to Hong Kong to deal with this. It’s suicidal. I don’t even believe that if the similar thing happened in China in Beijing again, that they would send PLA tanks again. PLA tanks in Hong Kong streets? I don’t believe so.