the number of attendees kept in a high level until in recent years the emergence of the localist movement challenged the meaning of commemorating the tiananmen protests, as some young localists perceived themselves as non-chinese and disagreed with one of the goals of the alliance, "build a democratic china". such view was held by localist scholar chin wan, who believed that the chinese nationalistic sentiment and patriotism the alliance projected was an obstacle for hong kong people to construct a distinct identity. some other criticisms included the overlapping membership of the alliance and the democratic party, the ritualization of the vigil and the ineffectiveness of the alliance of achieving any of its operation goals. since 2013 as the hong kong–mainland china conflict intensified, the number of the attendees to the vigil gradually dropped. from 2015 to 16, the number the alliance recorded dropped from 180,000 to 135,000.