How far will China go to end Hong Kong’s unrest, now in its 13th week and still growing? Senior officials have spoken not only of “terrorist acts” but of “colour revolution characteristics”, making it clear that they have ruled out compromise.
So far they have relied on the Hong Kong government to suppress the protests, but the banning of rallies, brutal police tactics, thug attacks, the arrests of high-profile activists and metro line closures have failed to dampen the unrest. On Sunday, thousands of activists descended on the airport. “They are trying very hard to scare people off the streets. It has only made people angrier,” said Ho-fung Hung of Johns Hopkins University, whose research areas include protest in China.
