A few days ago China celebrated it’s 70th anniversary of communist rule. In multiple cities across the Republic of China, protesters went out on the streets and violence escalated quickly. Two major cities had disruption, Beijing and Hong Kong, with Hong Kong having the most violent riots.
The anger began due to proposed law that would accept the removal of Hong Kong from mainland China. Until around twenty years ago Hong Kong was a British territory. While the city became apart of China it was not truly apart of China. The fact that Hong Kong has its own laws and government makes it more of an Alternate State.
The four month long protests for a pro-democracy government has reached its peak of escalation as protesters started a violent riot. People started fires and attacked the police with umbrellas, poles, petrol bombs and other things. In all, police fired nine hundred rounds of rubber bullets, fourteen hundred rounds of tear gas, water cannon and arrested two hundred and sixty nine people. Sixty six people were admitted to the hospital and one person was shot in close range with a rubber bullet. Everyone admitted is fine or in stable condition.
While China blames foreign influence on the recent uproar in Hong Kong while Hong Kong believes China is meddling in their business. Another issue is lack of identity, the people in Hong Kong do not view themselves as part of China even thought they are apart of it. This makes them further resent the presence of China in their State because they are “not China”.
China has two options to weigh in response of the growing rage, they can assert dominance or try to compromise with Hong Kong. As police fought fire with fire with the protesters, further angering them, dominance may not be a good idea. The issue with compromise is that it may be too late, the tensions may have risen too high between Hong Kong and China for either to budge on what they want.