Teargas, solidarity and defiance on Hong Kong’s chaotic streets

My bare arms tingle and burn as I continue west of Arsenal Street, where I count at least 20 police vans and buses queued up.

A protester catches an umbrella dropped from a Hong Kong walkway. Picture: Jillian Melchior / The Wall Street Journal

As I walk towards the epicentre of Hong Kong’s protests, my skin and eyes are a better navigation tool than Google Maps.

Several blocks away from the Legislative Council, my cheeks flush. My bare arms tingle and burn as I continue west of Arsenal Street, where I count at least 20 police vans and buses queued up.

A block later, I pull on my swimming goggles, but my eyes water as the lenses fog. Ahead of me, teargas lingers in the muggy air.

Despite the danger, thousands of Hong Kongers protested near the Legislative Council building, or LegCo, on Wednesday.

Legislators are pushing forward a bill that would allow extradition to mainland China. That would effectively negate Hong Kong’s legal independence, putting residents and foreigners alike in jeopardy. Pro-democracy activists, religious practitioners, lawyers, booksellers, businessmen and journalists would be especially at risk.

But really, no one in Hong Kong would be safe. The proposed law would threaten “freedom of speech, freedom of gatherings — our freedom, basically”, a young protester tells me, standing near Harcourt Road, on the rim of the protests.

“If we say something the government doesn’t like, they’ll take us back to China to face an unfair trial.”

That includes the prospect of torture. I ask her name, and halfway through explaining why she’s afraid to give it, her eyes widen. She runs off.

Behind me, people suddenly shout and flee from near LegCo. I’m more than a block away, but a stampede seems possible, so I cross Harcourt Road by climbing over a fence and a barrier. Despite the urgency, two young men in surgical masks pause to offer me a hand.

After 30 seconds, calm prevails — just another round of teargas, apparently. Some protesters turn back towards the epicentre, but my eyes are burning, and I’m a little rattled, so I retreat to the entrance of a nearby mall, Pacific Place.

Inside, it’s a surreal mix of order and chaos. An older woman shakes her head and vents her fury about the extradition bill. She’s so fired up that she grabs my pen and notebook and starts scribbling down the questions she wants me to ask the authorities on her behalf. “Escalate???” she scrawls — meaning she wonders if that is the cops’ intention.

There’s another spurt of collective panic, and many briefly rush towards the exits, despite no obvious immediate threat. Starbucks is still open, and a cleaner puts down a caution sign and begins mopping.

The shopping centre is not the frontline of the protests, but it becomes a secondary one as the teargas forces demonstrators to retreat from the area around LegCo using the streets and overhead walkways that lead to Pacific Place. Protesters surge into the shopping centre when they need relief. Many wear hard hats and have their arms bandaged in clingwrap to protect their skin from the acrid air. Those gathered in the shopping centre applaud incoming waves of frontliners.

I watch a volunteer first-aid crew descend on a young woman sprawled out on the floor. She seems to be wheezing and weepy from the teargas. Others huddle around her and pop umbrellas to keep anyone from filming her face. I step back, and someone asks if I saw blood. I didn’t, but he’s afraid the police have begun shooting.

Another protester warns me to be careful — the shopping centre has fewer exits than you’d think. A 20-year-old student at the University of British Columbia who’s back home on holiday plays down his courage.

“I’m not really protesting,” he says. “Even if I’m not ready to go all-out — to be arrested, to be on the front line — this is support.”

His plan is to buy supplies for the protesters.

Earlier in the day, I watched people on the walkways open umbrellas and drop them to the protesters below. I marvelled at how whimsical the umbrellas looked, drifting down like parachutes, and wondered if they were meant to invoke Hong Kong’s 2014 pro-democracy protests, the Umbrella Movement. I later read that demonstrators were using the umbrellas to shield themselves from teargas.

Throughout the day near the Admiralty metro station, protesters pass out surgical masks. I accept one, donning it as my skin and eyes burn from the teargas.

The flimsy mask grows drenched with sweat in the heat and humidity, and around 6pm my nose begins to bleed. I call it quits and head to a nearby restaurant to write.

As soon as I get to my laptop, I read that police also shot rubber bullets into the crowd.

Pro-democracy activists and religious leaders have called for non-violent protest. Some media reported that bricks and water bottles had been thrown at law enforcement. I didn’t witness any protesters behaving violently, though I saw some moving metal fencing to barricade themselves or clear escape routes.

While protesters may outnumber law enforcement, they’re clearly outgunned. Wednesday’s protests appeared smaller than Sunday’s, which drew more than a million people, or one in seven residents. They also seem more anxious. “We feel quite threatened,” one 24-year-old woman tells me. “We’re without any protection or weaponry.”

This level of civil unrest is extraordinary in an affluent society like Hong Kong. The protesters know their likelihood of success is minuscule. In a place with a genuinely representative government, mass opposition like this would probably be enough to block legislation and force officials to resign.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam has refused to withdraw the extradition bill or step down. Beijing continues to support the bill. The city is on edge against violence, but a loss of liberty is the real fear.

The Wall Street Journal