Hong Kong pro-democracy leader Joshua Wong turned 18 on Monday, making him old enough to vote in 2017 for the chief executive he hopes would be properly elected by the Hong Kong people.

Wong, who has been at the forefront of protests demanding for electoral freedoms in Hong Kong, celebrated his birthday in one of the main protest sites.

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Before sharing a cake with a handful of friends from Scholarism, a student group he founded in 2011, Wong held a midnight conference in which he outlined the pro-democracy movement's newest negotiating stance for the city's right for freer elections, Bloomberg News reported.

On his Facebook page, Wong listed three of his birthday wishes: that the fight for greater democracy will remain peaceful, that protesters continue to have the willpower to sustain the cause, and that Beijing would revoke its initial decision to restrict the city's right to vote.

The post drew about 16,000 'likes' from Facebook users, said South China Morning Post.

On the morning of his birthday, the Hong Kong police were deployed to remove the barriers the protesters have set up to disrupt the city's life and force Beijing to give in to their demands.

Wong said in an interview that the move by the police was meant to test the water, a prelude to the government's plan to clear the streets of protesters.

In a statement, the police have insisted they were only decongesting the roads of street blockades.

The Chinese teenager has become the image of Hong Kong's young democracy movement since the week-long class boycotts that began in late September.

Wong cut his teeth on political activism as a young teenager when he fought against the city's proposal to set up a high-speed rail link in 2010.

He then set out to mobilize 100,000 students to campaign against Beijing's plan to impose communist education and patriotism program before heading the worst political crisis the Chinese Communist Party has faced in its special administrative region.

Wong's face adorns the latest international issue of Time magazine in which he has been dubbed as "The Face of Protest."

TagsHong Kong pro-democracy leader Joshua Wong, Hong Kong pro-democracy movement, Joshua Wong