Why the Hong Kong Pro-Democracy Protests Failed

China imposed the National Security Law on Hong Kong (HK) in July (2020), after months of (at times violent) pro-democracy protests. But why did the protests fail? There are 4 major "miscalculations" and 3 serious "underestimations" of China to "learn" from, as a "historical lesson." But whether the National Security Law is really good or bad (or, conversely, whether the HK protests are really good or bad) is a "normative" question which depends on one's "political ideology" to answer, be it on the "Left" or on the "Right" (and is therefore beyond the scope of this essay). Instead, the central point here is simply that this "historical lesson," if not learned, can become a "repeated mistake" in the future. Four miscalculations The first miscalculation is that many (not all) HK protesters adopted the "Anonymous" tactic from the beginning. To the protesters, this tactic was "effective" to avoid arrests and prosecution, by having no unified leadership and hiding themselves behind different (at times leaderless) networks. But this tactic turned out to be "ineffective" in 3 ways. First, there was no "unified front" to negotiate with the government. Second, different groups made "competing" demands while "agreeing" on others. And third, some hided themselves behind "Anonymous" face masks, which gave them the psychological illusion of impunity and thus indulged themselves in irresponsible (mob) violence (as explained below).