"Hong Kong's people need no bird cage designed by the central authorities. We are masters of our own fate"

- Letter from the Hong Kong Christian Institute

Hong Kong's Victoria Park separates one of the city's busiest shopping districts from North Point; a suburb of decaying apartment blocks, rapidly constructed post-war to house refugees fleeing the mainland. Here, open-air markets, illuminated by red lanterns, sell shoes alongside racks of seafood and pyramids of vegetables. 

On Sundays, the birdsong chatter of  'domestic helpers' fills the air. Women crouch on the ground, not unlike me, as I wait inside Victoria Park for this year's pro-democracy march to begin.

According to the New York Times, Hong Kong is riding out a 'politically turbulent summer'.  Half a million people took to the streets on the 1^st of July, demanding democracy in Hong Kong and, for the first time, on the mainland.  Less than a month earlier, a record number commemorated the fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. More than 80,000 people, carrying black banners and a coffin, called on Beijing to 'vindicate' the memory of the students who died.

During the rally, I stopped to talk to some teenage marshals, distributing fans to those slowly making their way towards parliament. One of the marshals said, with unrestrained glee, the crowd already numbered 250,000 and it was not yet four. "Thanks for being here," he said. "This is part of Hong Kong history today."

What these protests will mean in terms of Hong Kong's future is unclear, but there is a definite buzz in the territory as a more politicized, civic culture emerges. "For decades the conventional wisdom was that Hong Kong was almost a commercial city - the politics could be left to Taiwan, thanks," says Newsweek. In today's Hong Kong, such stereotypes are under attack as a new breed of activists fight to make their demands heard.

When the last British governor, Chris Patten sailed off into the sunset with Prince Charles after one hundred and fifty years of colonial rule, it was understood that within a decade Hong Kong would have its own democratic government.

But as writer Kwok Nai-wang says, things are generally considered to be worse now. "Over the past 50 years, but especially after the riots in Hong Kong in 1967, the British style and substance of government was extended to Hong Kong."  Beijing's authoritarian style paired with the local tycoons' untrammeled sway is putting all that at risk.

Hong Kong's political system is far from democratic.  An 800-member committee - many with mainland economic ties - chooses the territory's leader, the Chief Executive. Only half of Hong Kong's parliamentary representatives are directly elected. Conservative trade groups, pro-Beijing bankers and property barons select the rest.  But, as Time reports, even this quasi-democratic system has become 'sidelined by Beijing, on everything from residency rights to political reform'. 

Such interference has not escaped international criticism.  In June, two US reports slammed Beijing's "intrusive interventions with regard to universal suffrage and direct elections".  And the British Foreign Office recently accused the central government of interfering in Hong Kong's domestic politics, in a way that undermined self-governance guarantees.

Three days before the march, the rally's organizers - a coalition of more than 50 non-government organizations, called the Civil Human Rights Front - held a press conference.  I introduced myself to Rose Wu.  Highly articulate, with a greying bob, and a slight American accent gleaned from her time spent studying theology in Boston, Wu is one of the Front's best-known faces.

 "As a student I was quite narrow-minded," Rose Wu says later in her small office at the Hong Kong Christian Institute.  To a large extent, Wu's political education mirrors Hong Kong's own.  It was work in one of Hong Kong's poorest areas, Shek Kip Mei, she says that triggered her awareness.

Wu joined the People's Patriotic Movement in the 1980s, but found its priorities limiting:  "The democratic movement at that time was led by males and their understanding of democracy is very narrow. For them democracy means 'one person, one vote' - universal suffrage - they don't touch on issues relating to poverty, or discrimination."

This is why, she says, the Civil Human Rights Front includes Hong Kong's most marginalized residents: sex workers, immigrants, the elderly and disabled.  "We have to have a social dialogue, a platform so people can strengthen the civil society, by entering a genuine dialogue and people can become active together," says Wu.

"In the past, the democratic movement was like a slogan, but for us it's a platform.  The Civil Human Rights Front is a platform where we invite the people of Hong Kong to come together to talk about the future.

"It's not just about the Chinese and this, to me, is deliberate," Rose Wu says emphatically. "We want to create a movement that reflects an idea of inclusiveness."

In the weeks leading up the demonstration, six words were on everybody's lips. The complex diplomatic ballet over this slogan deemed 'sensitive' to Beijing, illustrates Hong Kong's fraught relationship with the mainland. The slogan: Return the Power to the People.

When some of Hong Kong's pro-democracy campaigners supported dropping the slogan, I phoned the executive director of the pro-Beijing think tank, the One Country, two Systems Institute to find out why.

"The Central government is sensitive about this because in the Cultural Revolution the slogan was used by leftists trying to seize control of the government, " Shiu Sin-por said, before adding: "Ultimately, some marchers will use it, some won't."

Much TV time was devoted to slogan-related debates before the rally.  In one program, the pro-Beijing politician, Tsang Yok-sing asked: "Why not respect their (the mainland authorities') feelings."  Some pro-democracy politicians and trade unionists preferred using 'positive' slogans like 'We Love Hong Kong'. Even the pre-eminent campaigner, Martin Lee said that despite Hong Kong wanting democracy, it did not mean 'we and Beijing should be like fire and water'.

Hong Kong's new reliance on the mainland's economic largesse lies behind these debates.  Between 1991-1997, Hong Kong's economy grew at an annual rate of 5.1 %, but has recently struggled to manage half that.  This means Hong Kong's previously impervious citizens feel jittery, especially when mainland centers across the border are booming. 

The irony of the purportedly free Hong Kong accommodating Beijing sensitivities was not lost on Amnesty International's Bella Luk Po-chu.  "People have the right to express themselves, if that's what they want to ask for, they can freely do so," she says.  But in a climate of increasing media self-censorship, such basic human rights, as freedom of expression, appear to be increasingly under threat.

During the July 1^st rally, protesters wore a T-shirt with the faces of two prominent radio shock-jocks, Albert Cheng King-hon and Raymond Wong Yuk-man and the words; "Please come back".  The two men resigned, after what they say was a campaign of intimidation. Their successor, Allen Lee Pang-fei also quit after three weeks.  "As long as I keep my mouth shut and don't talk to you, I'm safe" Cheng told the New York Times.

According to Lee, a former mainland official rang him asking to talk about his show. During the late-night conversation, the caller said that Lee's wife was very virtuous and his daughter beautiful; two comments Lee interpreted as threats. 

The leader the pro-democracy group, The Frontier, Emily Lau describes the mood in Hong Kong at present as 'quite tense'. Over the past year, her office has been attacked. Days before the rally, seven posters outside her office calling on people to join the rally were burned, while 'Chinese traitors must die' was scrawled on the walls.

Amnesty International's Bella Luk says the departure of the talk-show djs has been a massive blow: "We aren't just talking about the person himself talking freely. These programs also give the opportunity to the public to phone in and use the atmosphere to share opinions. If these hosts are gone, this public opinion also nowhere to go."