Hong Kong in Revolt. Au Loong-Yu

became even more ferocious, had to ‘be like water’ to avoid arrests. In this period, most legal marches were also likely to end up ‘like water’ because they were not able to march to the planned end point, as the police used all kinds of excuses to break up the marches, forcing protesters to disperse into small batches in every direction.

      What is interesting to note is that the two biggest confrontations in November, namely the occupation of CUHK and PolyU, were in opposition to the ‘be like water’ tactic. Rather, they looked more like ‘a war of position’ than ‘a war of movement’.