May I ask who hasn?t spoken out?

We should all carry the responsibility to defend our city.

We have inborn rights and our own mind to make decisions.

Who wants to succumb to misfortune and keep their mouth shut?

This Cantonese version of ?The People?s Song? from popular musical Les Miserables has been embraced as the protester?s anthem in Hong Kong, where protests have entered the fourth week?alongside notes of home-grown superstar Wong Ka Kui?s ?forgive me for being wild and yearning for freedom?.

Hong Kong?s wild cry for freedom is obviously something China finds hard to contend with. The recently concluded talks between the protesters and the government have resulted in an impasse. It is not hard to see why.

Hong Kong pro-democracy protests have sprung a surprise challenge to China, which threatens to dismember some of China?s precious rhetoric. The basic tenet in question is ?one country, two systems?, which constituted the basis for the incorporation of Hong Kong back into its fold in 1997. Given China?s long-term goal, Taiwan?s peaceful reunification with mainland, the outcome of Hong Kong protests is politically loaded. The protests come in new times?where rolling tanks, a la Tiananmen of 1989, are virtually impossible, without China turning pariah internationally and, most importantly, in ?coveted? Taiwan.

Interestingly, China has been cornered partly by umbrellas?used by Hong Kong protesters to fend off a pepper-spraying police force, against temperamental rain showers as also aggressive anti-occupy disruptive hooligans, allegedly on the payroll of the Party who naturally want to disperse the protesters, earning protests the sobriquet Umbrella Revolution. In the past month, protesters have occupied crucial districts in Hong Kong (such as Tsim Sha Tsui, Admiralty, Causeway Bay and Mongkok) under the banner ?Occupy Hong Kong with Love and Peace?.

The profile of Hong Kong?s protesters has piqued attention?a circulating force of 10,000-odd KFC-munching, noodle-slurping, mobile-phone owning, spectacled teenagers who brand smartphones and communicate using the FireChat app (which connects users within 250 feet). The young protesters have captured international limelight, assiduously recycling waste at the protest grounds, humming and strumming music?a net-savvy suave reincarnation of Woodstock and Beat?youthful but not naive, leaderless but not rudderless, united by idealism who identify themselves more as Hong Kong citizens than Chinese citizens. Most recently, Hong Kong?s non-profit Bauhinia Foundation calls them Generation Z (who grew up in the internet age).

The sequence of events in Hong Kong unfurled in late August 2014 as China?s legislature indicated that candidates for Hong Kong?s chief executive in 2017 would be vetted through a nominating panel (who would allow only those acceptable to China on to elections)?a move that sufficiently incensed Hong Kong?s 7.2 million people.

This move by Beijing to install a pro-Party, pro-Beijing puppet government backfired. Instead of Hong Kong?s famous tycoons and financial whiz-kids?elites who have played a role in the transformation of Hong Kong into a leading financial hub?the non-elites, young university students turned rebels with a cause. Young students, such as the recognisable face of the movement Joshua Wong (who is all of 17 years), began to demand the right for the people to freely nominate the chief executive candidates in the 2017 election. This snowballed into a spontaneous Occupy Central movement.

Arguably, this is Hong Kong?s worst crisis since its handover by Britain as a crown colony to China in 1997 under the 1984 joint-declaration to restore Hong Kong to People?s Republic of China. Under ?one country, two systems? once referred to as without precedent or historical parallel, Hong Kong was deemed Special Administrative Region with English its official language, the Hong Kong dollar its currency, a free press independent judiciary, freedom of association, private property and ownership of enterprises.

Under the Basic Law, Hong Kong was granted a 50-year adjustment period that guaranteed retention of its current social and economic systems and lifestyles. In 2047, Hong Kong is deemed to revert to Chinese governance.

In the last 17 years, relationship between China and Hong Kong has had its moments. The current administration of Hong Kong?s third chief executive CY Leung (since July 2012) is said to be unpopular, so much so that in recent times Hong Kong has turned into the capital of protests. This included an unprecedented 40-day dock strike in May 2013 at the Kwai Tsing Container Terminals. There was mass opposition to Beijing?s national education policy in 2012, envisaged to have students toe Beijing?s line. Street rallies broke out, with large numbers of people participating, which led the government to back off.

Pro-democracy academic Prof Joseph Yu-shek Cheng (City University of Hong Kong) has pointed out that living conditions have been deteriorating, a fact corroborated by Oxfam, Bauhinia Foundation and even the Leung administration. The administration released the criteria of local poverty in September 2013, which placed the number of poor at 1.31 million, or 19.6% of the population. As Prof Cheng indicates, the influx of low-skilled mainlanders arriving in droves from Guangzhou (across the border) has created entrenched working poor families in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong economy is now 3% of China?s, down from 16% in 1997.

The widening gap between Hong Kong?s rich and poor has exacerbated. Unlike Singapore?s Housing & Development Board (HDB, established in 1960) which seeks to ensure a roof over peoples? heads, housing prices in Hong Kong continue to go through the roof. There are allegations that rich mainlanders make real estate pricier, making rich Hong Kong tycoons even richer (who profit from the real estate boom). Then is the fact of ?red? investments in Hong Kong (by Party members and state-owned enterprises). It is an open joke that even the mainland mafia has moved from Shanghai and Chengdu to Hong Kong.

Of late, Hong Kongers and mainlanders have a sore relationship. Hong Kong is prime destination for an estimated 40 million mainlanders who visit to lap up luxury goods (sold at lower prices due to Hong Kong?s lower taxation) and baby formula (which in China has been hit by a series of melamine scandals since 2008), so much so that Hong Kongers call mainlanders ?locusts?. Mainlanders responded by calling Hong Kongers ?dogs??a war of words that local media in Singapore and Taiwan kept abreast of.

Taiwan in particular is keeping a strong watch on happenings in Hong Kong. Taiwan?s Taipei Times has noted that ?Hong Kong?s students and citizens should therefore prepare for the worst and take measures to avoid becoming helpless victims of special interest groups in China and Hong Kong?.

China is crying that it is the foreign hand that has led to such a situation in Hong Kong. But trust Generation Z for a repartee. Joshua Wong, who adorns the recent cover of the Time, wrote on Facebook (not banned in Hong Kong): ?My links with foreign countries are limited to my Korean mobile phone, my American computer and my Japanese Gundam (robots) ? And of course all of these are made in China?.

Thus, China has a delicate balancing act to play?it cannot allow protesters to get what they want, or else people all over China may get similar ideas. China is already wracked by over 200,000 small protests a year, albeit over local, smaller issues. At the same time, protests have had an impact across the straits in Taiwan. If China forces a strong hand to deal with Hong Kong, even dreams of a peaceful reunification with Taiwan under the ?one country, two systems? may come to a naught.

The author is a Singapore-based sinologist and is currently adjunct fellow, Institute of Chinese Studies, New Delhi