Almost a million Hong Kong residents took to the streets on June 9, 2019, to protest against the government's proposed extradition bill (Credit: Hf9631 /CC BY-SA 4.0 /Creativecommons.org)

If you have been paying any attention to the news, you may have heard of the ongoing unrest in Hong Kong. Since June 2019, pro-democracy protestors have brought large areas of the bustling Chinese territory to a standstill with weekly demonstrations and sit-ins. Among the most disruptive was the August 12 protest at the Hong Kong International Airport. Thousands of dissenters barricaded the airport's passageways with luggage trolleys, metal barriers, and other objects, blocking passengers from boarding and forcing the cancellation of outbound flights for two consecutive days. So what has triggered the widespread discontent against the Beijing government? Read on . . .