TheEconomistAugust 17th 2019 291A
ten-week-oldpolitical crisis in Hong
Kong has taken a lurch for the worse.
Flash-mob protests across the territory
have led to a sharp increase in violence,
with hardball tactics employed both by
anti-government demonstrators and po-
lice. In an unprecedented move for Asia’s
pre-eminent financial centre, the authori-
ties shut down Hong Kong’s airport for two
days in a row in response to large demon-
strations there. The protests in the termi-
nal culminated in ugly scenes that China
was quick to describe as “terrorism”.
The escalation has fuelled speculation
about how China might respond. “If the sit-
uation gets worse, and turmoil occurs that
the Hong Kong government is unable to
control, the central government will not sit
idly by,” the head of China’s Hong Kong af-
fairs office, Zhang Xiaoming, had warned
the previous week. The unrest does not yet
appear impossible to contain using Hong
Kong’s police, but China’s state media have
broadcast footage of the mainland’s anti-
riot forces manoeuvring on the border with
the territory. The threat is clear.
After three days of low-key protests at
the airport, the mood changed on August
12th. Huge numbers massed at the terminal
following an alleged case of police brutal-
ity, when a young woman appeared to have
been shot in the eye with a beanbag round
during a separate demonstration. The air-
port responded by cancelling outgoing
flights and telling airlines not to take off for
Hong Kong. Fearing that police were about
to move in, most protesters left.
The following day demonstrators re-
turned, and flights were again cancel-
led. As the evening wore on, the mood grew
nastier. Protesters cornered a man who
they claimed was an undercover police of-
ficer from the mainland. The man fainted,
yet protesters refused to give access to
medics. Riot police eventually rescued
him. During the operation one officer came
under frenzied attack and drew his pistol.
Demonstrators also assaulted anotherman, claiming he too was a mainland
agent. Global Times, a mainland newspa-
per, said he was one of its reporters.
During the second day of airport closure
Carrie Lam, the territory’s chief executive,
said the unrest had taken Hong Kong to the
edge of an “abyss”. Yet she offered no guid-
ance as to how she intends to walk the terri-
tory back, other than a reliance on police
force to overawe the agitators.
Protesters too show no sign of willing-
ness to compromise. Their demonstra-
tions were at first about a bill that would
have allowed suspects in Hong Kong to be
extradited to China. Now they want a com-
plete withdrawal of the bill, not just the
shelving of it that Mrs Lam has announced.
They also demand an independent inquiry
into the whole affair, including the police
response. But they have set their sights
much higher: Mrs Lam’s resignation and
fully democratic elections—something
China says it will not allow.
Activists have called for another large-
scale rally in central Hong Kong on August
18th. This will be a test of whether the pub-
lic is growing weary of the violence and
fearful of the Communist Party’s warnings.
These have been growing ever more shrill.
Party-controlled media have been churn-
ing out what they describe as evidence that
the unrest has become a “colour revolu-
tion” and that foreign “black hands” are be-
hind it (see Chaguan).
All this smacks of an attempt by the cen-
tral government to make a case for inter-
vention by the Chinese army, which HongTurmoil in Hong Kong
Airport mayhem
HONG KONG
Is Hong Kong moving closer to the abyss that its leaders warn about?
China
30 Fifteen-secondtourism
31 Chaguan: Hong Kong’s “black hands”Also in this section