(Bloomberg) -- After a week of turbulence in Hong Kong, Beijing appears to have settled on its message to the city: continued protests risk throwing away everything that makes it special.A front-page editorial in the Communist Party’s flagship newspaper, the People’s Daily, blasted the protesters who stormed the city’s legislative chamber on Monday as “extremists” whose actions threaten to hinder economic and social development and “ruin Hong Kong’s reputation as an international business metropolis.”The comments play into widespread anxiety fomenting among Hong Kong residents: that the former British colony risks irrelevance as it is slowly swallowed up by an increasingly wealthy and powerful China. Beijing is using the week’s violence to put its own spin on events, sending protesters the message that their actions are more likely to speed up that trend than to slow it down. State media has presented Hong Kong as a city on the brink.“As the global economic landscape undergoes profound adjustments and international competition becomes increasingly fierce, Hong Kong faces great challenges and cannot afford flux or internal attrition,” the People’s Daily said.Historic protests erupted in the city last month over Lam’s decision to push ahead with a controversial bill that would ease extraditions to the mainland, alarming locals and spooking Hong Kong’s business community. The ransacking of the legislature came on the anniversary of the 1997 handover, as tens of thousands of people marched peacefully in a separate annual protest that passed near the complex.Earlier: Hong Kong on Edge After Historic Night of Tear Gas and Vandalism“The protesters now risk losing the moral high ground. This could be a turning point,” said Wang Huiyao, an adviser to China’s cabinet and founder of the Center for China and Globalization. “The violence could destroy their credibility, and it will be hard for anyone in the West to defend. They will also alienate people who supported the movement.”Party NarrativeState broadcaster CCTV on Tuesday aired footage of Chief Executive Carrie Lam denouncing the demonstrators and footage of police riding in to secure the building. A website run by the Communist Party’s nationalist Global Times said the chaos “disrupted public order and challenges the rule of law.”It’s a narrative that directly challenges some of China’s external critics. “What I would say to President Xi is, ‘look at how special Hong Kong is,’” U.K. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said Monday. “Let it be, it says so much for China if it’s prepared to let Hong Kong operate under a different system with those basic democratic freedoms.”The tougher line in official media has come together with a more combative stance from the government in Beijing. Both the foreign ministry and the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office have denounced the protesters who stormed the legislature as “extremists.”Unrest Returns to Hong Kong: A Day In PicturesOfficials have also slammed foreign critics of the city’s official response. On Tuesday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang described Western criticisms as “an ugly act of hypocrisy” while warning countries to choose their words and actions carefully. From the outset of the protests, Beijing has obliquely hinted at the role of “foreign interference” in instigating unrest.In the long run “it is hard to see a happy ending to this impasse,” Simon Pritchard, Global Research Director at Gavekal, wrote in a note.“On the Hong Kong side, the student holidays will end and the pragmatism that characterizes most of the population may persuade all but a hard core of protesters to back away,” he said. “If something like this does play out, it will be a fragile truce until the next big challenge to Hong Kong’s way of life comes around.”To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Peter Martin in Beijing at pmartin138@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, Karen Leigh, Chris KayFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.