Hong Kong clashes while China celebrates
Demonstrators protest as Beijing plans to mark 70 years’ Communist rule
HONG KONG — Three of Hong Kong’s main commercial districts were engulfed in thick clouds of tear gas Sunday as pro-democracy demonstrators battled police in an open challenge to Beijing just two days before China celebrates 70 years of Communist rule. Sunday’s demonstrations were some of the worst unrest in the city since the protest movement began in early June and were timed before China’s National Day anniversary Tuesday. The protesters see the anniversary as a chance to broadcast their resentment of Beijing’s growing influence over their semi-autonomous Chinese city.
Local authorities, however, are under pressure to tamp down anything that could overshadow China’s official celebrations.
The protests began Sunday afternoon in the Causeway Bay shopping district and quickly turned violent, as demonstrators smashed the windows of a subway station in nearby Wan Chai and threw flaming bottles into it.
They also set fire to a decorative red sign that celebrated National Day and directed much of their taunting and chanting at the central Chinese government and the Communist party. Some papered “Anti-ChiNazi” signs on the gates of businesses that they perceived to be pro-Beijing.
“Expel the Communist party, free Hong Kong,” the crowd chanted at one point.
Jason To, 18, a university student who joined a march toward government offices, said he was afraid that if Hong Kong drew closer to mainland China, the city’s residents would lose their right to protest and their free press.
“I’m a Hong Konger, not a mainland Chinese,” To said.
By nightfall, police had sprayed clouds of tear gas in three busy districts on Hong Kong’s main island and arcs of blue-dyed water from cannons mounted on trucks. Battalions of riot police officers were patrolling the streets of major commercial districts as if they were battlefields, and protesters were setting fires at intersections and the entrances to shuttered subway stations.
In the luxury Admiralty shopping district, police sprayed blue-dyed water at protesters outside the Hong Kong headquarters of the Chinese military. They also pinned protesters to the ground, including one who was bleeding profusely from his skull.
As dusk fell, demonstrators in the Wan Chai district continued to toss Molotov cocktails at police while the clanging of bricks on metal street signs — the protesters’ call to arms — echoed through a canyon of tall apartment buildings. Tourists wearing face masks could be seen huddling behind the barricaded plate glass door of their hotel.
Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets, and the local news media reported that an Indonesian journalist in Wan Chai had been struck in the eye. The South China Morning Post newspaper also reported, citing an unnamed police source, that an undercover officer had fired a live round into the air in the district after a group of protesters attacked the officer and three undercover colleagues. The Hong Kong government said Sunday evening that 13 people had been hospitalized with injuries. The majority were in stable condition, it said, but one woman was in serious condition and another man’s condition was unknown.
Because none of the demonstrations Sunday had police approval, they were all technically “illegal assemblies” under Hong Kong law.
Meanwhile in Beijing, the Communist party is preparing to celebrate the 70th anniversary of its rule on Tuesday with pomp and pageantry.
President Xi Jinping is scheduled to preside over a military parade involving15,000 soldiers and sailors, 160 fighter jets and other aircraft, and 580 tanks and other weapons.