To break the cycle of violence, Hong Kong must deal with the root causes of society’s problems

After the Umbrella Movement, protests against parallel traders, the University of Hong Kong saga, and now the “fishball revolution”, what next for Hong Kong? Is the city embracing the road to violence? And what does this violence mean for Hong Kong’s future relations with mainland China under the “one country, two systems” principle?

The nature of violence (and the extent of hatred against the police reflected in violence) is unseen in recent years in an otherwise safe and peaceful city.

Whereas the Hong Kong government classified the violence involving localist groups as a “riot”, the Chinese government labelled the Mong Kok rioters “separatists”. Picking up on the cue, Zhang Xiaoming (張曉明), director of the central government’s liaison office in Hong Kong, said the actions of the “radical separatists” were “leaning towards terrorism”. And a former Hong Kong security minister described young people involved in the riot as “beasts”.

This labelling game is merely responding to symptoms rather than reflecting on problems underpinning the violence. Neither this, nor a reactive “law and order lens” – buying water cannons for police, training firefighters to deal with riots, and enacting a law to ban masks during protests – would help avoid a repeat of Mong Kok’s violent scenes.

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Rather, Beijing and the Hong Kong government should join hands to address the root causes that are pushing the city down the road to violence.

First, there is a growing feeling among some Hongkongers that peaceful protests are fruitless in achieving legitimate goals. The frustration that even the massive protests seen during the Umbrella Movement could not bear any tangible results is alienating such people, especially those from the younger generations, and stopping them exploring other alternatives.