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China’s unruly periphery resents the Communist Party’s heavy hand
The party cannot win lasting assent to its rule by force alone
Afew days ago hundreds of young people, some teenagers, turned the redbrick campus of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University into a fortress. Clad in black, their faces masked in black too, most of them remained defiant as they came under siege. Police shot rubber bullets and jets of blue-dyed water at them. Defenders crouched over glass bottles, filling them with fuel and stuffing them with fuses to make bombs. Many cheered the news that an arrow shot by one of their archers had hit a policeman in the leg. After more than five months of anti-government unrest in Hong Kong, the stakes are turning deadly.
This time, many exhausted protesters surrendered to the police—the youngest of them were given safe passage. Mercifully, massive bloodshed has so far been avoided. But Hong Kong is in peril (see article). As The Economist went to press, some protesters were refusing to leave the campus, and protests continued in other parts of the city. They attract nothing like the numbers who attended rallies at the outset—perhaps 2m on one occasion in June. But they often involve vandalism and Molotov cocktails. Despite the violence, public support for the protesters—even the bomb-throwing radicals—remains strong. Citizens may turn out in force for local elections on November 24th, which have taken on new significance as a test of the popular will and a chance to give pro-establishment candidates a drubbing. The government’s one concession—withdrawing a bill that would have allowed suspects to be sent to mainland China for trial—did little to restore calm. Protesters say they want nothing less than democracy. They cannot pick their chief executive, and elections for Hong Kong’s legislature are wildly tilted. So the protests may continue...
This time, many exhausted protesters surrendered to the police—the youngest of them were given safe passage. Mercifully, massive bloodshed has so far been avoided. But Hong Kong is in peril (see article). As The Economist went to press, some protesters were refusing to leave the campus, and protests continued in other parts of the city. They attract nothing like the numbers who attended rallies at the outset—perhaps 2m on one occasion in June. But they often involve vandalism and Molotov cocktails. Despite the violence, public support for the protesters—even the bomb-throwing radicals—remains strong. Citizens may turn out in force for local elections on November 24th, which have taken on new significance as a test of the popular will and a chance to give pro-establishment candidates a drubbing. The government’s one concession—withdrawing a bill that would have allowed suspects to be sent to mainland China for trial—did little to restore calm. Protesters say they want nothing less than democracy. They cannot pick their chief executive, and elections for Hong Kong’s legislature are wildly tilted. So the protests may continue...
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