China’s media used to ignore the turmoil. Now the state is waging a campaign that could pave the way for interventionAs Hong Kong enters its third month of mass anti-government protests, across the border in
China, people are seeing a very different version of events.
On Saturday, as
protests entered their tenth weekend and demonstrators and
police clashed in Hong Kong, the People’s Daily posted an article on the Chinese WeChat webchat service saying members from “all parts of Hong Kong society” were calling for the “violence to stop”. As peaceful rallies at the Hong Kong airport continued over the weekend, Chinese state media posted videos on Weibo of a tussle between demonstrators and an angry resident yelling: “We just want Hong Kong to be safe”.