Rival groups of demonstrators clashed in Hong Kong and police made arrests in another weekend of mass protests after months of political unrest.
Dozens of pro-Beijing protesters waved Chinese flags and chanted “support the police” at a mall in Kowloon Bay yesterday as pro-democracy demonstrators gathered, clad in black and wearing masks.
After a standoff, members of the two sides began to fight, throwing punches and hitting each other with umbrellas before police separated them. At least one man was seen bleeding from the head.
Photo: AFP
Groups of anti-government and pro-government protesters yelled at each other and scuffled by a nearby “Lennon wall” — murals of protest art set up by demonstrators.
In one incident, protesters surrounded a woman they accused of filming them and refused to let her leave. Police were seen tackling and subduing several people, some of whom said they were local residents going to the mall.
As Hong Kong enters its fourth month of mass protests, tensions between supporters and critics of the pro-democracy movement have escalated.
Earlier yesterday, fights broke out between residents in Fortress Hill and a group of pro-government demonstrators in blue T-shirts, after a Lennon wall had been torn down.
Video footage showed groups of men using Chinese flags to beat mostly younger men.
In one scene, a group chased and kicked a young man until a passerby shielded him with his body.
Hundreds of anti-government protesters in masks and all-black outfits were also marching in Tin Shui Wai, a neighborhood in Hong Kong’s New Territories, defying a police ban on the planned event.
Bus lines to the area were shut as riot police faced off against protesters who were building barricades on the streets.
Yesterday marked the 15th consecutive weekend of mass protests in Hong Kong, where demonstrations against the government have deeply divided society. The protests, triggered by an extradition bill that would allow suspects to be sent to mainland China, has turned into a broader pro-democracy movement.
Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) promised to permanently withdraw the bill, but protesters have vowed to continue until all their demands are met.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong democracy activist Joshua Wong (黃之鋒) on Friday urged US President Donald Trump to include a “human rights clause” in any trade agreement with China, and sought Washington’s backing for the territory’s democracy movement.
The 22-year-old called on US politicians to pass a bill expressing support for the pro-democracy campaign during a speaking engagement in New York, a few hours after arriving in the US.
“It’s significant to add a human rights clause in the trade negotiations and put Hong Kong protests under the agenda of the trade negotiations,” Wong told reporters afterward.
The world’s two biggest economies have been locked in a bitter trade dispute for the past year, resulting in tit-for-tat tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars in two-way trade.
Trade talks between Beijing and Washington are scheduled for next month.
Wong said it is crucial Hong Kong is factored into the negotiations, adding that the territory faces the threat of emergency laws “similar to martial law” and fears that China could send troops to the semi-autonomous region.
“If China has no intention to safeguard Hong Kong’s economic freedom and open business it will also affect and damage the world economy,” he said.
Wong arrived in the US after visiting Germany as he seeks global support for Hong Kong’s widening pro-democracy protests.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest foundry service provider, yesterday said that global semiconductor revenue is projected to hit US$1.5 trillion in 2030, after the figure exceeds US$1 trillion this year, as artificial intelligence (AI) demand boosts consumption of token and compute power. “We are still at the beginning of the AI revolution, but we already see a significant impact across the whole semiconductor ecosystem,” TSMC deputy cochief operating officer Kevin Zhang (張曉強) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “It is fair to say that in the past decade, smartphones and other mobile devices were
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
RSS