Police in the city of Hong Kong have cleared out pro-democracy protesters in the city’s financial center for the last two months. More than 200 protesters have been arrested since September when China’s Communist Party announced that all political candidates in upcoming 2017 elections would be pre-screened and approved in Beijing. “This is not the end of the movement. The political awakening amongst the young is irreversible” Hong Kong lawmaker Claudia Mo told the AFP on Thursday.

The protest movement have come at a time when China is trying to increase its influence in its neighborhood including most notably the country of Taiwan. Taiwan recently voted in local elections for opposition parties seeking to distance the island from Beijing. Voting out the ruling party that supported closer ties to Beijing, the people of Taiwan showed their consensus on moving further towards democracy.

“We have learned we have power when we are together and have enough people”, pro-democracy supporter Cat Tang said during Thursday’s dismantling of the encampments. Those arrested were declared by police and Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region CY Leung as having participated in “illegal occupation activities”. The dismantling of the camps have been seen by many in the international media a defeat for the movement because of Beijing not caving to protester demands.

“It was like my home” Constance So said, who is a university student and a supporter of the pro-democracy movement. “I’m leaving my friends behind. I feel like I’m betraying them”, she went onto say. There was a universally defiant attitude among the marchers as many of those arrested or leaving the encampment yelled “we’ll be back”. “While the umbrella movement has not been able to secure any tangible concessions on democratic reforms, it has galvanized a significant portion of Hong Kong’s population around the ideas of freedoms and democracy”, City University of Hong Kong professor Surya Deva said regarding the movement.

Although there were many who supported the protesters, there were those who also said that the movement did more harm than good like former head of the Royal Hong Kong Police Force’s Criminal Intelligence Bureau (CIB), Steve Vickers who said, “this movement has done more damage to the pro-democracy camp then anything in the last 17 years”.

Although the resilient Hong Kong pro-democracy movement may not have achieved its goal in getting Beijing to remove the requisite of the loyalty committee, it has awakened a passion for independence within the Hong Kong people that will not allow their politicians to be influenced by Beijing forever. The world will be watching.