REPORTER: Adrian Brown
MAN (Translation): Democracy will win!
This is Hong Kong, but not as you're used to seeing it. In January 10,000 demonstrators laid siege to the Legislative Assembly. At one stage the crowd even tried to force their way inside. The protest went on for two days. For a handful of local politicians it was a promising sign.
MARGARET NG, HONG KONG LEGISLATOR: The future of Hong Kong is built on people like this and I support them 100%.
High on the protesters' list of frustrations was China's continued refusal to allow full democracy for Hong Kong's 7 million citizens.
CROWD (Translation): Down with the unjust government!
And in the thick of it all was 22-year-old Christina Chan.
CHRISTINA CHAN: All the frustrations of the broken promise of Hong Kong people ruling Hong Kong, it's just all getting released right now.
Today, Christina Chan is hurrying to make an appointment at Hong Kong's police headquarters. She's about to find out if she'll be charged with assaulting two police officers at another democracy protest earlier in the year. 20 minutes later Christina emerges, but there's still no decision on her fate.
CHRISTINA CHAN: No charges yet, no.
REPORTER: So they put you on bail?
CHRISTINA CHAN: I am on bail, but they haven't actually charged me.
Once again she's in Hong Kong's media spotlight, something she's got used to since she burst onto the scene two years ago. Christina first decided to take a stand during the troubled torch relay for the Beijing Olympics.
CHRISTINA CHAN (MAY 2006): We want to represent people that don't have a voice in Tibet while we can still speak up in Hong Kong.
As the torch passed through she was almost lynched when she began waving the Tibetan independence flag. To Chinese loyalists it was like a red rag to a bull. Eventually she was bundled away by police for her own safety. It was a protest that drew media coverage around the world.
CHRISTINA CHAN: In the beginning I was quite naive. I didn't actually know that being a young female protestor, you know, was such a unique thing in Hong Kong these days and that it would cause so much... just attention, really.
REPORTER: Are you prepared to go to jail if you have to?
CHRISTINA CHAN: I am prepared to go to jail if I have to and I am prepared to be physically hurt if I have to be, but we go out there every time thinking that it's a possibility but obviously we try to avoid it.
On her picturesque home island of Cheung Chau, it would be easy for most people to forget about politics, but not Christina. Despite the fact she was just nine when Hong Kong was handed back to China, she has a strong sense of injustice from that time.
CHRISTINA CHAN: Since before the handover we've been told that we would have Hong Kong people ruling Hong Kong, but in the end we have just become another colony - of China this time. And they pick our chief executives, our legislative councillors aren't really fully elected by everybody by means of universal suffrage - we really just don't have a say in our future.
Thanks to Christina's demonstrations she's become the face of the radical new student movement called "the post-'80s generation".
CHRISTINA CHAN: I've done probably 500 interviews since two years ago.
Along with all the attention has come some salacious coverage in the local media, where even political activists are treated like celebrities.
CHRISTINA CHAN: I've had to sacrifice more than I expected to. And if I could go back I think I would change the way in which I deal with the media.
Today Christina is preparing for another media encounter, an invitation to speak at one of Hong Kong's most prestigious clubs.
CHRISTINA CHAN: I am not nervous but I think maybe I should be because I just found out the two English newspapers in Hong Kong both reported about it - I didn't really know it was such a big deal.
REPORTER: What are you going to say today? What's going to be your main message, do you think?
CHRISTINA CHAN: I've been invited to talk about why the post-'80s generation are so angry. The main thing is that we still don't have democracy, we still don't, you know, hold the future of Hong Kong in our hands.
STEVE VINES, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Christina, hi! Thanks very much for coming. You're commendably early. Why don't you come upstairs?
Hong Kong's Foreign Correspondent's Club. Over the years its members have been addressed by some of the biggest names in world politics - presidents who were friends of democracy, prime ministers who sometimes weren't, as well as those always guaranteed to get a laugh, and today a 22-year-old philosophy student. Thanks for inviting me. Christina has not written a speech or come with notes, yet for 15 minutes she confidently addresses a dining room full of strangers from a much earlier generation.
CHRISTINA CHAN: We are actually determined to take that anger and actually do something to change Hong Kong and we will not just remain silent forever. And if you are not angry, then maybe you should ask yourself, why aren't you angry? That's all from me.
STEVE VINES: I think she's a story for a number of reasons. I mean, on the one hand she is somebody who perhaps represents this protest movement.
Political commentator Steve Vines is the host of Hong Kong current affairs show 'The Pulse'.
STEVE VINES: Secondly - let's face it - she's a rather glamorous person and, you know, news does follow glamorous people. And thirdly, she is articulate so people can understand by listening to her what this protest generation are thinking.
Vines, has been taking the territory's pulse for more than 20 years now and believes Christina Chan is a serious force.
REPORTER: What is it that drives her, do you think?
STEVE VINES: I think it's perhaps a more general feeling that you have a very remote and unlistening government. And because of that you have a situation where the public can never get heard.
The sticking point has been Beijing's attitude to introducing universal suffrage, as promised in the constitution.
PROFESSOR MICHAEL DE GOLYER, HONG KONG BAPTIST UNIVERSITY: As they always say, the devil's in the details. Just exactly what do you mean by 'universal suffrage'? How do you define 'universal suffrage'?
Michael de Golyer is a politics professor who's been tracking the territory's political development. Today, he's explaining the mechanics of parliament to students who could one day be running Hong Kong.
PROFESSOR MICHAEL DE GOLYER: The only agenda was to shift 1-8 below 9-12. De Golyer says the Chinese Government has ruled out direct elections in 2012, now saying only that it may allow them in 2017 and 2020. His students are not happy.
STUDENT: May I ask all of you, what is the difference between the word 'may' and the word 'must'? There is clearly no obligation that the NPCSC shall adopt this interpretation.
Changing the political system is made even harder by the fact that half of the 60-seat parliament is reserved for industry representatives, who are usually on China's side.
PROFESSOR MICHAEL DE GOLYER: This change requires a two-thirds vote, and since only half the legislature is directly elected from geographic constituencies that means somebody in the special functional constituency seats - some engineer, some banker, some lawyer - has got to give up their seat. That's the problem. How do you get people who have power and privilege to give it up?
LEUNG KWOK-HUNG (ARCHIVAL) (Translation): How much is a banana? What's the price of eggs? You don't know.
One of Christina Chan's heroes is tackling that problem head-on. Leung Kwok-hung is the most radical of Hong Kong's elected politicians. Here he's haranguing the head of government, Donald Tsang.
LEUNG KWOK-HUNG (ARCHIVAL) (Translation): Listen! Listen to me!
Leung, or 'Long Hair' as he's known, is one of five pro-democracy legislators who recently threw down the gauntlet to Beijing by resigning their seats. Their aim is to turn the resulting by-elections into a referendum on democracy. Some have called it an uprising.
DR PRISCILLA LEUNG, LEGISLATIVE COUNCILLOR: If they would like to get the goal of universal suffrage as soon as possible this definitely is not the right way.
Dr Priscilla Leung is a legislator who hails from the pro-China camp. She says such provocative language touches a raw nerve in Beijing, where memories of the student uprising two decades ago are still vivid.
REPORTER: Is this going to provoke Beijing?
DR PRISCILLA LEUNG: I do think so. I think - as I see in their own history - 'uprising' definitely relate to something like overthrowing the present government with a more militant or violent act.
PROFESSOR MICHAEL DE GOLYER: We are getting a level of frustration building up to the point to where we could have an incident that triggers actual violence. We've had violence in the past in Hong Kong. That definitely indicates that we may have it in the future.
After more than 4,000 protests and processions last year alone, the temporary crash barriers outside the Chinese Government offices have become a permanent feature. With the post-80s generation digging in for a struggle, Hong Kong's culture clash with its mainland masters is far from over.
STEVEN VINES: We're in pretty unchartered waters here. The Chinese Government doesn't really have any experience of dealing with people in an open society and I think they are genuinely perplexed.
CHRISTINA CHAN: 10 years down the road I might be a parent already and I still won't be able to decide on what kind of world my children will grow up in, and I think that's what's getting more and more people angry, just the constant frustration.
Reporter/Camera
ADRIAN BROWN
Producer
AARON THOMAS
Fixer
Carmen Ng
Editor
DAVID POTTS
ROWAN TUCKER-EVANS
NICK O’BRIEN
Translations/Subtitling
WINNIE LAI
Kong Wo Tang
Original Music composed by
VICKI HANSEN