Pro-democracy camp (Hong Kong)
The pro-democracy camp, also known as the pan-democracy camp, is a political alignment in Hong Kong that supports increased democracy, namely the universal suffrage of the Chief Executive and the Legislative Council as given by the Basic Law under the "One Country, Two Systems" framework.
The pro-democrats generally embrace liberal values such as rule of law, human rights, civil liberties and social justice, though their economic positions vary. They are often referred to as the "opposition camp" as they have consistently been the minority camp within the Legislative Council, and because of their non-cooperative and sometimes confrontational stance towards the Hong Kong government and Chinese Communist Party. Opposite to the pro-democracy camp is the pro-Beijing camp, whose members are perceived as being supportive of the Beijing and SAR authorities. Since the 1997 handover, the pro-democracy camp has usually received 55 to 60 percent of the votes in each election, but has always received less than half of the seats in the Legislative Council due to the indirectly elected elements of the legislature.
The pro-democracy activists emerged from the youth movements in the 1970s and began to take part in electoral politics as the colonial government introduced representative democracy in the mid-1980s. The pro-democrats joined hands in pushing for greater democracy both in the transition period and after handover of Hong Kong in 1997. Many also supported greater democracy in China and the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. The relationship between the pro-democrats and the Beijing government turned hostile after Beijing's bloody crackdown on the protest, after which the pro-democrats were labelled as "treasonous". After the 2004 Legislative Council election, the term "pan-democracy camp" became more commonly used as more allied parties and politicians of varying political ideologies emerged.
The camp faced a challenge in 2016 election from the new localists who emerged after the Umbrella Revolution and ran under the banner of self-determination or Hong Kong independence. After the election, some localists joined the pro-democrats' caucus, which rebranded itself as the "pro-democracy camp". The disunity within the camp and the failure of the Umbrella Revolution cost the pro-democrats in the 2018 by-elections. The 2019 anti-extradition movement, however, saw a rebound in popularity for the camp, which contributed to its biggest electoral victory in the history of Hong Kong, gaining control of 17 of the 18 District Councils and more than tripling their seats from 124 to 388 in the 2019 District Council election. In reaction to the political upheaval, the Beijing government imposed national security law to curb the opposition and disqualified four sitting pro-democracy legislators, triggering the resignations of remaining pro-democrats and rendering the bloc extra-parliamentary. Dozens of activists were arrested and jailed in the following months, most notably the Hong Kong 47. Most of the pro-democracy parties dissolved between 2020 and 2025, reportedly under pressure from the authorities. Some media outlets considered the pro-democracy camp to have come to an end when the League of Social Democrats dissolved in June 2025.
Ideology
One of the main goals of the pro-democracy camp is to achieve universal suffrage of the Chief Executive and the Legislative Council as guaranteed in Article 45 and Article 68 of the Basic Law respectively. Since the National People's Congress Standing Committee's 31 August 2014 decision, which determined that the Chief Executive candidate would be selected by a highly restrictive nominating committee and was seen as betrayal of the democratic value, some democrats have raised the question of the right to self-determination. However, the mainstream pro-democrats retained their support for a highly autonomous Hong Kong under the "One Country, Two Systems" framework, as promised by the Basic Law.The pro-democrats generally embrace liberal values such as rule of law, human rights, civil liberties, and social justice, though their economic positions vary. Some pro-democrats position themselves as more pro-labour while most pro-democrats believe in a more meritocratic or egalitarian society. The pro-democracy camp generally supports the Chinese democracy movement, which can be traced back to their support for the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Many of the pro-democrats have been calling for the end of one party rule of the Chinese Communist Party and therefore are seen as a threat by the Beijing authorities. The camp's support for more liberal democracy is seen as unacceptable by the Beijing government. In some cases, pan-democracy activists have been labeled traitors to China.
The pro-democrats are also divided by their approach for achieving democracy: the moderate democrats, represented by the Democratic Party and the Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood, believe in dialogue with Beijing and Hong Kong governments over struggle, while radical democrats such as the League of Social Democrats and the People Power believe in street actions and mass movements. There have been severe conflicts and distrust between the two factions and a great split after the constitutional reform voting in 2010, where the Democratic Party negotiated with the Beijing representatives and supported the modified reform proposal and was thus seen as a betrayal by the radical democrats.
History
Early development
Members of the camp include social workers and social activists emerged from the 1970s youth movements. Many of them grouped themselves as the "social action faction", competing against the pro-Communist Maoists in whom they disagreed with their ultra-nationalist and radical Maoist stances. Although claiming to be patriotic and launching the defend the Diaoyu Islands movement, the "social action faction" dedicated themselves into the local social issues in Hong Kong. They fought for the social inequality and livelihood issues, including the anti-corruption movement and Chinese Language movement and so forth. In the early 1980s when the question of Hong Kong sovereignty emerged, many of them supported a democratic autonomous Hong Kong under Chinese sovereignty, notably the Meeting Point which was founded in January 1983 which became the first political group to publicly support the Chinese sovereignty of Hong Kong.After the Sino-British Joint Declaration, the pro-democrats began to join hands to demand further democracy before and after 1997. In 1986, a number of political groups, activists, professionals and politicians joined hand under the banner of the Joint Committee on the Promotion of Democratic Government demanding for 1988 direct elections for the Legislative Council and earlier universal suffrage for the Chief Executive and Legislative Council after 1997, as presented in the proposal of the Group of 190. Their arch rival at the time was the Group of 89, a group of conservative business and professional elites in the Hong Kong Basic Law Drafting Committee and Hong Kong Basic Law Consultative Committee. They generally opposed the British colonial administration and its perceived "kowtowing" to the Beijing government over the issues such as constitutional reform, direct elections, civic rights and Daya Bay Nuclear Plant.
The pro-democrats maintained a relatively warm relationship with the Beijing government during the 1980s, as many of the pro-democrats supported the Chinese sovereignty in Hong Kong and the "high degree of autonomy" as ensured in the Sino-British Joint Declaration. They also saw the ideal of Hong Kong helping in China's Four Modernisations. The Beijing authorities also viewed the pro-democrats as the targets of the united front. Barrister Martin Lee and educator Szeto Wah, president of the Hong Kong Professional Teachers' Union, who were also the two most visible pro-democracy leaders, were appointed members of the Hong Kong Basic Law Drafting Committee in 1985 by Beijing.
The pro-democrats also participated in electoral politics as direct elections were introduced in local levels in the 1980s, namely the District Boards, Urban Council and Regional Council. Among them, the Meeting Point formed in 1983, the Hong Kong Affairs Society in 1985 and Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood in 1986 became the three major pro-democratic groups and formed a strategic alliance in the 1988 District Board elections, which laid the foundation of the pro-democracy grassroots supports.
Tiananmen protests and last colonial years
The consolidation of its public support has its roots in opposition to the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown which aroused widespread horror, sympathy and support of the protesters by Hong Kong citizens. The pro-democrats, who were heavily involved in the protests and formed the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, were seen as "treason" and threat to the Beijing government. The two pro-democracy Basic Law Drafting Committee members, Martin Lee and Szeto Wah, were stripped from the office after they resigned in protest of the bloody crackdown, many of other pro-democrats were denied entry to the mainland China since. Since 1989, the Alliance organise annual candlelight vigil for the June 4 crackdown at the Victoria Park, Hong Kong, which draw thousands of people every year. Ahead of the first direct election to the Legislative Council in 1991, around 600 democracy activists co-founded the first major pro-democracy party, the United Democrats of Hong Kong.The electoral alliance of United Democrats of Hong Kong and Meeting Point, together with other smaller political parties, groups and independents, won a historical landslide victory in the 1991 election, took 17 out of the 18 geographical constituency seats. The pro-democrats were often considered strategic allies of Chris Patten, the last colonial governor who proposed a much progressive democratic reform in the last years before the handover of Hong Kong, despite Beijing's strong opposition. The Democrats supported Patten's proposal for the 1995 Legislative Council election. However, Emily Lau's full-scale direct election amendment was not passed as a result of Meeting Point's abstaining from voting for Emily Lau, which caused harsh criticism from the radical democrats and the United Ants. In 1994, the United Democrats and the Meeting Point merged into the Democratic Party, which won another landslide victory in the 1995 election, taking 19 seats in total, far ahead of other parties. Together with other democratic parties and individuals including Emily Lau, Lee Cheuk-yan and Leung Yiu-chung who later formed The Frontier in 1996 and Christine Loh who formed the Citizens Party in 1997, the pro-democrats gained a thin majority in the legislature for the last two years before 1997.
The Beijing government argued that the electoral reform introduced by Patten had violated the Joint Declaration and thus they no longer felt obliged to honour the promise of a "through train", a plan to keep the 1995 elected legislature into post-handover SAR era. A parallel Legislative Council, the Provisional Legislative Council, was formed in 1996 under the control of the Pro-Beijing camp, this became the Legislative Council upon the founding of the new SAR government in 1997, in which the pro-democrats except for the Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood boycotted it, deeming it as unconstitutional.