Shooting one unarmed protester, repeatedly drawing their firearms on others, and attacking protesters around the city, Hong Kong police on Monday made physical their new directive from Beijing: break the pro-democracy movement with force.
To be clear, this police escalation is not accidental. It reflects Chinese President Xi Jinping’s decision, with the support of the powerful Standing Committee, to crush the protesters by force. Articulating the new tactics, Beijing’s Chief Executive of Hong Kong Carrie Lam described the democracy activists as the “people’s enemy.” This choice of language is critically important. It reflects Beijing’s ruling that the people are in overt insurrection against the Chinese Communist Party itself.
How did we get here?
Well, the simple point is that Chinese authorities are very frustrated. Their slow drip escalation strategy against the protest movement has been a total failure. Beijing’s new propaganda campaign and face mask bans have only fueled the pro-democracy movement’s energy. Monday’s violence shows Beijing has directed officers to take off the gloves and make the protesters bleed. And not just with guns. In another police attack, an officer on a motorcycle attempted to run protesters down. And police fired tear gas on college campuses for the first time.
But with a pro-Beijing protester also set on fire on Monday, more violence is certain to follow. That brutal act will serve Beijing’s domestic propaganda campaign to paint the protesters as Western infiltrators and terrorists, not democracy activists. An attack on a pro-Beijing lawmaker last week achieved the same result. We are heading toward a Peoples Liberation Army deployment.
A deployment of sorts has already occurred. China’s Ministry of State Security intelligence service has sent hundreds of more officers into Hong Kong to identify and harass pro-democracy activists. But in the hammer attack last month on protest leader Jimmy Sham, there are signs that state security is moving toward more coercive action.
The desperate escalations on both sides reflect the vast import with which each side sees this struggle. The protesters believe theirs is a struggle to avoid Hong Kong’s descent into an urban gulag like those on the mainland — a place of facial recognition cameras on every corner, disappearances every week, and the absolute supremacy of the Communist Party always and everywhere.
Beijing sees this as a struggle to defend the party against a great insurrection. Xi would prefer not to crush the protesters by force, aware of what that will mean for his global relationships and influence efforts. But it’s clear that he increasingly believes he has no other choice. He simply cannot allow for the narrative, at home or abroad, that the party is not supreme in thought and in action.
Buckle up.
