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Hong Kong Protesters, Resisting China’s Push, Clash with Police Hong Kong Police Fire Tear Gas as Protesters Resist China’s Grip
(about 5 hours later)
HONG KONG — Thousands of protesters and riot police officers swarmed some of Hong Kong’s busiest neighborhoods on Sunday, cutting off traffic and freezing most retail activity in the city’s largest street mobilization in months. HONG KONG — Thousands of protesters swarmed some of Hong Kong’s busiest neighborhoods on Sunday, singing, chanting and erecting roadblocks of torn-up bricks and debris, as the police repeatedly fired tear gas, pepper spray and a water cannon during the city’s largest street mobilization in months.
The confrontations, which began around 1 p.m., were scattered throughout the Causeway Bay and Wan Chai neighborhoods, both lively commercial hubs. Protesters had originally planned to march between the two neighborhoods in a show of opposition to China’s push to tighten its control over the semiautonomous region with security legislation. The protest, the first since China announced plans to tighten its control over Hong Kong through security legislation, was planned as a march between the city’s bustling Causeway Bay and Wan Chai neighborhoods. But when the police blocked the route, firing multiple rounds of tear gas in quick succession, the protesters quickly splintered into smaller groups, setting off more than seven hours of scattershot confrontations.
But when the police blocked their route, deploying tear gas and water cannons, protesters splintered into clusters of dozens or sometimes hundreds that dispersed and reassembled repeatedly over the course of several hours. While the protesters were largely peaceful, periodic clashes left the area choked with haze and littered with broken glass, furniture and police tape. The police patrolled the district’s main thoroughfare with a water cannon, escorted by an armored truck with two officers seated on top, pointing guns loaded with rubber bullets.
Many residents see the move by China’s ruling Communist Party to impose national security laws in Hong Kong as a major, perhaps irreparable, blow to the city’s relative autonomy. It rekindled longstanding fears that the Communist Party would use such sweeping legislation to strangle the civil liberties — such as freedom of assembly and press — that distinguish the city from the mainland. The police said they had arrested at least 180 people, mostly for unlawful assembly, and at least four officers were injured. The city’s hospital authority said that six people had been hospitalized, including one woman in critical condition.
“Hong Kong independence is the only way out,” protesters chanted as they poured onto a busy thoroughfare in the Causeway Bay shopping area. They sang songs and hoisted signs as they pressed forward, ignoring the warnings of dozens of police officers in riot gear to disperse. The protest on Sunday — the city’s first large-scale demonstration since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic — underscored the depth of many residents’ outrage and fear about Beijing’s national security push. The protesters flouted social distancing rules and police warnings against illegal assemblies to show their solidarity against the security laws, which many fear would strangle the civil liberties that distinguish the city from the mainland.
The demonstration was the biggest in the territory in the several months since the coronavirus epidemic and rules on social distancing have kept many antigovernment protesters at home. But the demonstration also made clear the challenges before the pro-democracy movement. Attendance was far lower than for the massive rallies last year against a bill that would have allowed extraditions to mainland China. Some protesters have expressed hopelessness or a new fear of participating in public opposition. The police also showed that they planned to continue a new pattern of assertiveness toward the protests, trying to stop mass gatherings before they occur.
Tam Tak-chi, an activist from People’s Power, a pro-democracy group, held what he described as an open-air public health lecture at a street stall, distributing masks and social-distancing advice while also criticizing the city’s riot police officers and Beijing’s tightening grip. “I keep coming out to protest,” said one attendee, Hanna Ng, 16. “Bad things keep happening, but I don’t know what else to do.”
“With the national security law, the people cannot be healthy,” Mr. Tam said. “Stand with Hong Kong. Fight for freedom.” Crowds began forming around 1 p.m., as hundreds of people milled beneath the gleaming facades of Causeway Bay, Hong Kong’s shopping district. Ignoring police warnings about the city’s social distancing regulations, which prohibit public gatherings of more than eight people, the protesters taunted police officers, hoisted signs denouncing the Chinese Communist Party and sang “Glory to Hong Kong,” the unofficial anthem of the pro-democracy movement.
The police moved quickly to shut it down, and Mr. Tam was seen being taken away. Several protesters waved flags calling for Hong Kong independence — a call that, though still considered fringe, has gained some traction in recent months as anger at Beijing has grown.
As the crowd thickened, trams sat immobilized on the rails, with passengers poking their phones out to film the activity. One protester jammed police cones under the tires of a minibus to prevent it from moving. As the crowd thickened, trams sat immobilized on the rails, with passengers poking their phones out to film the activity. One protester jammed traffic cones under the tires of a minibus to prevent it from moving.
“I came out today to protest against the evil law China will impose on Hong Kong,” said Billy Lai, a 34-year-old social worker. “If everyone of us can do a little bit more, I hope we can bring changes to the society.” Shortly before 1:30 p.m., the police fired several rounds of tear gas, sending the crowds that had been trying to march westward fleeing into stores and side streets. But the protesters, many of whom had been trained by last year’s street battles to bring gas masks, reassembled as quickly as they had dispersed.
Many tried to march west toward another district but were turned back when the police fired tear gas. The police said in a statement that its officers had to use the measure to disperse crowds who had blocked traffic and thrown umbrellas, water bottles and other objects at officers. The result was several hours of start-and-stop encounters, with long stretches of tense quiet interrupted by sudden bouts of police officers sprinting down a street, firing pepper balls or tear gas to clear the way. At times, they fired pepper spray in close range of protesters and journalists, according to videos on social media.
The police said in a statement that they had deployed tear gas to disperse protesters who blocked traffic and threw umbrellas, water bottles and other objects at officers.
“Some rioters have set fire to debris and hurled glass bottles from rooftops, causing danger to residents and business owners nearby,” the police said, adding that protesters had charged into roads, removed street barriers and damaged traffic lights.
Protesters also reportedly beat a lawyer who had expressed pro-establishment views; they also smashed the glass of at least one storefront. Some protesters piled umbrellas, wooden boards and overturned trash cans to barricade streets, and a few threw objects at police vehicles.
Groups of police officers pinned protesters to the ground and conducted random searches on passers-by.
Still, the clashes were relatively restrained, compared to violent clashes that marked the later months of protests last year.
The march on Sunday was planned before Beijing announced its national security plans on Thursday. It was originally intended to oppose a separate bill, in Hong Kong’s Legislature, to criminalize disrespect of the Chinese national anthem. Antigovernment groups see that proposal as yet another indication of the mainland’s encroachment on Hong Kong.
But after the security push was announced, the event took on added urgency for protesters eager to show they would not be cowed.
“I came out today to protest against the evil law China will impose on Hong Kong,” Billy Lai, a 34-year-old social worker, said. “If everyone of us can do a little bit more, I hope we can bring changes to the society.”
Ricky Chun, a retiree, said he had not planned to attend Sunday’s march when it was first announced. But after the national security push, he knew he had to attend.
“This is the only way we can express ourselves,” he said. “We cannot just keep ourselves quiet and take whatever they give to us.”
In Beijing, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, said that the protests that roiled Hong Kong for much of last year had posed a grave threat to national security, demonstrating that such legislation was long overdue.In Beijing, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, said that the protests that roiled Hong Kong for much of last year had posed a grave threat to national security, demonstrating that such legislation was long overdue.
“We must get it done without the slightest delay,” he said at a news briefing.“We must get it done without the slightest delay,” he said at a news briefing.
He sought to assuage concerns that the rules would be used as cover for squelching antigovernment dissent in the city, saying that the move targeted a “very narrow category” of acts that threaten national security. He sought to assuage concerns that the rules would be used as cover for squelching antigovernment dissent in the city, saying that the move targeted a “very narrow category” of acts.
“Instead of becoming unnecessarily worried, people should have more confidence in Hong Kong’s future,” he said.“Instead of becoming unnecessarily worried, people should have more confidence in Hong Kong’s future,” he said.
In the days since the announcement by Beijing on Thursday that it planned to enact new security laws affecting Hong Kong, the city had remained relatively quiet. Many protesters, while describing outrage and grief, also expressed a sense of paralysis. Faced with a direct challenge from the Communist Party rather than its proxies in the Hong Kong government, they said their faith in the power of protest had dimmed. In a statement on Sunday evening, an unnamed spokesperson for the Hong Kong government called the protesters “thugs” and the clashes “atrocities.” The day’s events confirmed ”the necessity and urgency of national security legislation,” the statement said.
The movement is also struggling to recover from the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic. Even before the local authorities enacted bans on large public gatherings, many Hong Kong residents chose to stay home and avoid crowds. Since January, attempts to revive the protests of last year had been sparsely attended and quickly stifled by the police. The Hong Kong government previously tried to introduce security laws in 2003 but backpedaled after mass protests. The city’s government has since avoided reintroducing such legislation, and Beijing’s move signaled its impatience with its local proxies.
Even as the threat of the virus has waned, some in the pro-democracy camp have said they prefer to express their discontent in potentially safer ways, such as boycotting businesses seen as sympathetic to Beijing. It remains unclear how the protest movement will move forward, and whether it will able to replicate last year’s victories. Though the protesters in 2019 forced the Hong Kong government to withdraw the extradition bill, many said the aggressiveness of the Communist Party’s actions had dimmed their faith in the power of protest.
The march on Sunday was planned before the national security announcement. It was originally intended to oppose a separate bill, in Hong Kong’s legislature, to criminalize disrespect of the Chinese national anthem. Antigovernment groups see that proposal as yet another indication of the mainland’s encroachment on Hong Kong. In addition, even as the coronavirus pandemic has waned in Hong Kong, some in the pro-democracy camp have said they prefer to express their discontent in potentially safer ways, such as boycotting businesses seen as sympathetic to Beijing.
“In the eyes of the Chinese Communist Party one-party dictatorship, advocacy for democracy is seen to be subversion,” said Lee Cheuk-yan, who led a small protest earlier Sunday in front of China’s Liaison Office, which represents the mainland government’s interests in the territory. “Of course this is a threat to the people of Hong Kong and the freedom we have enjoyed.” Still, those who attended the march said protesting remained one of the most viable options.
The march Sunday was smaller than the huge rallies that filled Hong Kong streets last year to protest a bill that would have allowed extraditions to mainland China. The Hong Kong government eventually abandoned that law, but protests continued over issues like the use of force by the police and limits on democracy in Hong Kong. “I wouldn’t use optimistic,” Michelle Chung, 45, a theater artist, said of her outlook on the protests. “But I would say that if we do not insist, we will not see hope. It’s because we insist, that hope will remain out there.”
This year, the police have taken a more assertive approach to the protests, trying to stop mass gatherings before they occur. They have also fined groups of protesters for violating social-distancing regulations put in place to limit the spread of the coronavirus. Ezra Cheung, Elaine Yu and Katherine Li contributed reporting.
The Hong Kong government previously tried to introduce security laws in 2003, but was stopped after a mass protest march. The city’s government has since avoided reintroducing such legislation.
Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s Beijing-backed leader, said the local impasse made it necessary to have Beijing bring in such laws. But to many in Hong Kong, the intervention by the central government has dealt a heavy blow to the autonomy that the city was promised when it returned to China from British control in 1997.
Ezra Cheung and Elaine Yu contributed reporting.