Xi Jinping sees protests in Hong Kong as a threat to the party

STRIKINGLY OFTEN, campaigners for Western-style freedoms in Hong Kong pretend that they are not seeking a fight with the Communist Party of China. Rather, activists say that their goals and those of party chiefs in Beijing should be nicely aligned: both camps seek continued prosperity for Hong Kong, 22 years after the former British colony became a free-market enclave in China, under the slogan “one country, two systems”. Instead, the campaigners sound crossest with Hong Kong’s government, for failing to maintain a strict enough separation from the mainland.

Campaigners have mostly held to that don’t-poke-the-Chinese-dragon stance during protests that have snarled central Hong Kong since June 9th. Two of the demonstrations have involved more than a million people demanding the withdrawal of a bill that would allow extraditions from the city to mainland China. At times, the contradictions have been a little dizzying. Some protesters defied baton-swinging police and tear-gas as they denounced the Hong Kong government—and above all its chief executive Carrie Lam—for exposing them to a Chinese justice system in which they have no confidence. Marchers waved blood-red banners adorned with images of handcuffs. They yelled obscene Cantonese insults aimed at Mrs Lam, at police officers and (Chaguan regrets to report) at the mothers of those officers. Protest signs depicted Mrs Lam as Gollum, a small and malevolent hobbit. But slogans targeting Xi Jinping, China’s leader, have been rare.