A clean-up began across Hong Kong on Saturday with pro-government groups removing bricks and debris from roads after a week of widespread disruption and violence as pro-democracy protesters changed tactics to sink the city deeper into chaos.
Their “Blossom Everywhere” campaign of roadblocks, vandalism and protest across the semi-autonomous financial hub shut down large chunks of the train network, forced schools and shopping malls to close and stretched police resources. As the afternoon wore on, scores of broad-shouldered men with crew-cuts and wearing identical gym kits emerged from the barracks of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in Kowloon in ranks, swiftly removing bricks from the road and scooping up debris.
China, which regained control of Hong Kong from the British in 1997, has ramped up its rhetoric against the protesters who accuse China of chipping away at the unique freedoms enjoyed by Hong Kong compared with the rest of the mainland and fear a military response from Beijing as the unrest deepens. Protests have swept Hong Kong since June as many in the city of 7.5 million people have vented fury at eroding freedoms under Chinese rule. Violence has escalated, and tensions have spread overseas, sparking friction between China and Britain, which governed Hong Kong until 1997.
