Violent protests in Hong Kong mark National Day
BEIJING » China’s authoritarian president used the 70th anniversary of Communist Party rule on Tuesday to pledge that nothing would stop his nation’s ascent. But the message was marred by some of the worst anti-government violence to convulse Hong Kong, including the first police shooting of a protester.
Anticipation of a confrontation in Hong Kong on the anniversary, which Chinese leaders in Beijing consider a sacrosanct event, had been building since the protests began this summer in the semiautonomous territory bordering southern China.
The split-screen contrast of tightly choreographed goose-stepping military formations in Beijing to celebrate the National Day versus the chaos of firebombs and rubber bullets in Hong Kong was jarring and almost certainly infuriating to President Xi Jinping.
It laid bare how Xi’s image and agenda have become hostage to the months of protests, undermining his reputation for unshakable control.
As the festivities in Beijing got underway, Xi offered his government as a guarantor of “prosperity and stability” in Hong Kong. Xi presided over an 80-minute parade by China’s military that included the first public showing of a missile that can carry 10 nuclear warheads and hit anywhere in the United States.
But after the parade ended, protesters in Hong Kong directly challenged China’s hold over the city, clashing with police in multiple neighborhoods that turned vast swathes of the territory into a tear gas-choked and bonfire-filled battlefield.
When the protesters refused to retreat, police fired bullets, mostly into the air.
But in the Tsuen Wan neighborhood, near Hong Kong’s border with the Chinese mainland, a police officer shot an 18-yearold in the left shoulder during a melee.