Analysis: Mass protests in Hong Kong could trigger intervention by China

BEIJING — Though China doesn’t want to intervene in the summer-long protests that have shaken Hong Kong, the movement, now in its seventh week, has veered into dangerous territory.

Protesters, who had previously besieged the city’s legislature and police headquarters, directed their ire at China itself on Sunday, defacing the central government’s official emblem and pelting its building in Hong Kong with eggs. Their actions were not well-received in Beijing.

In an escalation on the other side, a group armed with metal rods and wooden poles beat up antigovernment protesters and others inside a subway station late Sunday. The attack injured 45 people, including a man who remained in critical condition. Beijing supporters had clashed with protesters previously, but not on this scale.

Neither side wants China’s People’s Liberation Army to step in, but the growing chaos and what China will see as a direct challenge to its authority raise the risks. The thuggish attack on the protesters brought accusations of connivance between police and criminal gangs, though Hong Kong’s police commissioner denied it.

Any intervention by China would likely bring international condemnation and could endanger Hong Kong’s position as a financial center governed by rule of law. It would also draw comparisons to China’s deadly military crackdown on Beijing’s pro-democracy Tiananmen protests in 1989, an event the government wants the world to forget.

For China, it’s not just an economic question but also a political one. Hong Kong, a former British colony, was returned to China in 1997 under a “one country, two systems” concept that gives the city a fair degree of autonomy over its affairs. Hong Kong residents have much broader rights and freedoms than mainland Chinese.

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