China blames U.S. for Hong Kong protests
What happened
Fears were mounting this week that China would launch a military crackdown in semiautonomous Hong Kong, after pro-democracy protesters temporarily shuttered the city’s airport and Beijing began massing paramilitary forces nearby on the mainland. Thousands of protesters—some waving U.S. flags and singing “Do You Hear the People Sing?” from Les Misérables— swarmed the airport for several days, causing hundreds of flights to be canceled. It was the boldest act of defiance yet by the twomonth-old protest movement, which was sparked by legislation that would have allowed Hong Kongers to be extradited to the mainland but has grown to include demands for greater democracy. The airport occupation descended into chaos after the crowd beat up two men from mainland China—one a reporter with a state-run newspaper— and riot police rushed in. The next day, protesters held up a sign that read “We apologize for our behavior, but we are just too scared.”
Chinese authorities described the demonstrators’ actions as “close to terrorism,” and satellite images showed some 500 armored personnel carriers parked at a stadium in the southern city of Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong. President Trump tweeted that U.S. intelligence agencies had confirmed that Beijing was moving troops toward Hong Kong and that “Everyone should be safe and calm!” Chinese state-run media said the protests were being guided by the “black hand” of the U.S. and that the CIA was trying to stage a “color revolution” like those that erupted in former Soviet republics in the early 2000s.
What the columnists said
The odds of a Tiananmen Square–style crackdown “are rising by the day,” said Richard McGregor in The New York Times. Beijing’s displays of “fury and firepower” are meant to intimidate the protesters into retreating, but a vicious cycle has now taken hold. Images of police battering peaceful protesters with batons and tear gas have made some protesters embrace violence, in turn provoking more iron-fisted policing. China’s strongman president, Xi Jinping, won’t tolerate these embarrassing scenes for much longer. Soon, he will “resort to force.”
“Rhetorically, it’s not even clear what side the U.S. is on,” said John Daniel Davidson in TheFederalist.com. Trump has been content to offer platitudes such as “I hope it works out for everybody, including China.” And Democratic presidential candidates, too busy “eating corn dogs and pandering at the Iowa State Fair,” have been largely silent. The protesters waving American flags passionately believe in American freedoms. “The question is, Do we?”
Trump’s response has been “almost comical in its emptiness,” said Jonathan Last in TheBulwark.com. But “what is he supposed to do?” If he supports the protesters too loudly, Trump will add fuel to Beijing’s claims that the demonstrations are all a foreign plot. If he applies no pressure, he will only embolden the Communist regime. Too much pressure, and he could make Beijing desperate. “And desperate regimes are violent regimes.” America, sadly, can do little to protect the brave souls on the streets of Hong Kong.