Just who runs protests in places like Kiev and Hong Kong? It's not an easy question to answer, but that doesn't mean the protest movements in those places lack energy or direction. In fact, their loose structure may be a new model for political organization.
Hong Kong's chief executive, CY Leung, is the focus of much of the anger and disdain from the city's huge protest movement. On Thursday, he finally agreed to meet with protest leaders and start the dialogue that demonstrators have demanded. But he also says he's not going anywhere.
Reporter Mary Kay Magistad spent 20 years reporting on China, and says Hong Kong's ingrained culture of law and rights is too powerful for Beijing's normal methods of control to work. And that's in large part because Beijing has ignored the city's real opinions.
Hong Kong isn't just a city — it's the place where China was able to strike a long-awaited blow at the Western powers who subjected China to decades of colonial humiliation. That's how Beijing still views the city, and that powerful past means compromise on the current protests is all that much harder.
Hong Kong's "Umbrella Revolution seems to only get bigger as the days go by. At the center of the protests, demonstrators say they're not planning on leaving any time soon, even as their demands to Beijing remain unclear.
There might have been a lot of coverage of the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, but the story barely made a blip in mainland China. Chinese government officials have tightly controlled reporting from Hong Kong, and even blocked Instagram for the first time.
Days after demonstrations began in the center of Hong Kong, tens of thousands of demonstrators are still in the streets despite the use of tear gas and pepper spray by the police. And, by all appearances, the pro-democracy protesters are settling in for the long haul.