When social organizations and civic groups in Hong Kong joined hands in 1989 to protest against the Chinese government during the Beijing student movement, they were following a long-established “coalition model” of social movement resource mobilization in the city. That is, when an important issue occurs, numerous social groups and associations would form an informal coalition to address the issue. Coalitions of this kind were often disbanded once the issue was resolved, or they might remain an informal alliance to facilitate continual work on the matter when needed. They rarely became formal organizations.

Against this background, the establishment of the Alliance in 1989 was an exception to the norm. As a veteran activist recalled, protest leaders at the time understood that promoting democratization in China is likely to be a long-term struggle. There were, in addition, concerns about the political risks involved in working on the topic. Movement leaders thus regarded a formal organization as necessary (Lee & Chan, 2011: 129).

As time went on, it became clear to the core members of the Alliance that collective remembering of Tiananmen cannot be sustained in the long run if memories about the event are not passed onto subsequent generations. If young people born in the late 1980s and afterward are not successfully recruited into the mnemonic community of Tiananmen, collective memory can quickly fade away once the original generation steps down. Therefore, the Alliance has deliberately emphasized the need to “pass on the baton” since the early 2000s. The Hong Kong Alliance Youth Group was formed in 2001. But even before that, since the 1990s, the annual vigils almost invariably included sessions for members of the Youth Group or representatives of university student unions to give speeches.