The "Occupy Central" campaigners Benny Tai and Joshua Wong are featured on Foreign Policy's list of "leading global thinkers of 2014", for "making Beijing sweat". Such gloss is only one of example to show how the US-led West is behind the "umbrella movement". Early on Wednesday, after a period of calm, a small group of protesters even broke into the city's legislature.

In fact, whatever the grievances of the largely middle-class demonstrators, there is incontrovertible evidence of involvement by US funded agencies, and former officials in meetings, trainings, financing, and other matters leading up to the demonstrations.

Benny Tai, frequently mentioned as the key "democracy" organizer in Hong Kong, regularly attends forums paid for or organized by the US State Department, National Endowment for Democracy and its subsidiary the National Democratic Institute.

The NED and NDI, despite having "democracy" and "democratic" in their names, are far from democratic. The NED was founded, in the words of its first head, "to carry out the work the CIA" - the US spy service - "could no longer do". Both NED and its sister organization the NDI are primarily funded by the US Congress.

Their real mission is to destabilize and overturn independent governments which are not to the liking of US policymakers, whether by supporting agitation for "freer elections" as in Hong Kong, or by overturning elected governments, as was done recently in Ukraine with Viktor Yanukovych's government.

However, the connections of the NED and NDI to the Hong Kong "pro-democracy" movement are more than just those to Benny Tai. Some other "key leaders" are also involved.