Solidarity in the Anti-Extradition Bill movement in Hong Kong

One important aspect of the 2019 Anti-Extradition Bill (Anti-ELAB) movement in Hong Kong is a high degree of solidarity between the movement’s moderate and radical flanks. The solidarity has contributed to the movement’s sustainability and played important roles in its dynamic evolution. This essay attempts to explicate how the solidarity has been produced, maintained, and negotiated. It first outlines the changing relationship between the moderate and radical flanks of the city’s pro-democracy movement since the 2000s. It then explicates the social, experiential, and discursive bases of solidarity in the first five months of the Anti-ELAB movement. It illustrates the role of – as well as the limitations to – an ethics of solidarity in managing conflicts in intra-movement debates. General implications of the analysis on studies of social movements are discussed.