Street demonstrations are continuing in Hong Kong, with tens of thousands of people in the streets. While the protests continue, their size and scale have not been seen in the city for several decades. HPR’s Bill Dorman has more in today’s Asia Minute.
Like any city, Hong Kong is a collection of neighborhoods. Hong Kong Island is where the financial district is: in an area called “Central.” One metro stop away is “Admiralty:” home to government offices. These are where protestors had signaled for several weeks that they would demonstrate, and the streets there have been choked with tens of thousands of people.
But the disruptions have spread much further. Local media say they are bigger than anything seen in Hong
Kong since the Cultural Revolution of the 1960’s. Two metro stops from Central is the shopping area of Causeway Bay—where roads are blocked. Kowloon is the other major part of Hong Kong—on the other side of the harbor from Hong Kong Island. Mong Kok—another popular shopping area—has become another center for protestors.
Chinese censors have been busy clamping down on social media to prevent images or mentions of the protests from reaching the mainland. The Chinese media are ignoring the story; although the state-run news agency Xinhua said officials in Beijing are “fully confident” the Hong Kong government can handle what it calls the “illegal” actions.
There’s a timeline on all of this: Wednesday is the anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. It’s a national holiday in China, and a date protestors have targeted for some kind of response from local authorities.
