HONG KONG — Pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong snarled major roads and threw bricks and firebombs at the police on Sunday in an open challenge to Beijing just two days before China celebrates 70 years of Communist rule.
Sunday’s demonstrations were notable because they came ahead of National Day, a sensitive holiday for the country’s governing Communist Party.
The protesters see the anniversary as a chance to broadcast their resentment of Beijing’s growing influence over life and politics in their semiautonomous Chinese city. The movement has roiled Hong Kong for 17 straight weekends, often boiling over into clashes between the police and protesters, but the authorities are under pressure to keep a lid on the unrest that threatens to overshadow China’s official celebrations on Tuesday.
[Here is how China is preparing to exalt President Xi as its unassailable leader on National Day.]
The protest on Sunday quickly turned violent as protesters smashed the windows of a subway station and threw firebombs into it. They also set fire to a decorative red sign that celebrated National Day.
The protesters directed much of their taunting and chanting at the central Chinese government and the Communist Party. Some held red signs that said, “Anti-ChiNazi.”
“Expel the Communist Party, free Hong Kong,” they 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.” Mr. To said, speaking through a gas mask. “All of us like China, but we don’t like the Communist Party. Their rule is problematic.”
By 4:30 p.m., the police force had sprayed clouds of tear gas in three busy neighborhoods of Hong Kong’s main island, and arcs of blue-dyed water from cannons mounted on trucks. Battalions of heavily armed officers were patrolling the streets of major commercial districts as if they were battlefields.
Because none of the demonstrations on Sunday had police approval, they were all technically ”illegal assemblies” under Hong Kong law.
The demonstrations began around lunchtime on Sunday, as a smattering of protesters gathered in the Causeway Bay shopping district on Hong Kong Island. Several dozens chanted, “Dirty cops” at riot police officers, and at least one protester was detained.
Zoe Wong, 19, a student who was among the shouting protesters, said it was important for the protesters to speak up now, particularly against what they see as a pattern of police brutality against demonstrators over the past several months.
“It’s an anti-totalitarian movement — the Hong Kong government has done a lot of bad things,” Ms. Wong said. “If we don’t come out now, we may not have another chance. We have less hope, but we still need to stand up for our rights.”
[Read more on how the protests in Hong Kong expose a generational rift.]
The police first fired pepper spray, then multiple rounds of tear gas, sending protesters — and shoppers with bags — fleeing through small side streets. Then the crowds swelled into the tens of thousands, and many began marching west toward government offices, turning a main road into a sea of black-clad protesters.
“We want real universal suffrage,” some shouted in a call for expanded direct elections of the city’s leader and lawmakers.
From Causeway Bay, thousands marched into the Wan Chai neighborhood, where some protesters smashed a glass window of a shut train station and threw firebombs at the police officers who were hunkered down inside — and shooting pepper spray back.
Others surged further west into the Admiralty neighborhood, where they faced off with riot police in what looked at turns like a set-piece battle, flanked by skyscrapers on either side of a central thoroughfare. The police sprayed blue-dyed water at protesters a few blocks away, just outside the Hong Kong headquarters of the Chinese military.
The local government said in a statement that the police had used appropriate force to clear large crowds in Causeway Bay, and the Hong Kong Police Force said on Twitter that it had deployed tear gas in Wan Chai and Admiralty in vain after repeatedly warning protesters to leave.
On the Kowloon Peninsula, across Hong Kong’s harbor, dozens of protesters gathered at Festival Walk, a mall complex in the Kowloon Tong neighborhood. Many shouted, “Reclaim Hong Kong; revolution of our times,” one of the movement’s signature slogans, and sang “Glory to Hong Kong,” its unofficial anthem.
Bill Yeung, a 53-year-old taxi driver, was among the chorus of protesters who stood near the edge of an atrium at the mall. Mr. Yeung said he had shown up because he was alarmed by the slow erosion of Hong Kong’s cherished liberties.
“We want to reclaim our city — restore democracy, rule of law and the freedoms we previously enjoyed here,” he said.
Sunday’s demonstrations came a day after tens of thousands of protesters rallied in a downtown park to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the start of the Umbrella Movement, a pro-democracy campaign that is widely seen as a precursor to the current demonstrations, and hours after hundreds of pro-Beijing supporters gathered in a downtown park to sing China’s national anthem and wave national flags.
Dozens of rallies in solidarity with the city’s protest movement were scheduled to be held on Sunday by human rights activists across Asia, Europe and North America.
“For many of us, even though we have left Hong Kong, our roots and hearts are there,” said Mabel Tung, 64, one of the organizers of a march in Vancouver. “So when Hong Kong is in trouble, we want to help save it.”
The protests in Hong Kong this weekend presented a sharp contrast to the atmosphere in Beijing, where 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 involving 15,000 soldiers and sailors, 160 fighter jets and other aircraft, and 580 tanks and other weapons.
The Hong Kong government said on Sunday that Carrie Lam, the city’s chief executive, would lead a delegation of more than 240 people to Beijing on Monday to celebrate the holiday.
2019-09-29 09:38:00Z
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/29/world/asia/hong-kong-protest-china-national-day.html
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