As protests in Hong Kong intensify in the run-up to China’s 70th National Day celebrations, the country has reportedly doubled its troop presence in the city to 12,000.
According to an investigation by Reuters, China has doubled the number of its troop presence, including members of the People's Liberation Army and the paramilitary People’s Armed Police (PAP), though state-run news agency Xinhua called the move a routine troop ‘rotation’.
Reuters cited envoys in Hong Kong who called the move a reinforcement of troops, a month after the city’s chief executive Carrie Lam said there was ‘absolutely no plan’ to deploy People’s Liberation Army (PLA) forces to quell the protests taking place on the streets. The report said the bulk of the forces added have been from the PAP.
While it was the PLA that were involved in the brutal crackdown against protesters in Tianenmen Square in 1989, the PAP are more commonly deployed to quell domestic unrest, such as in places like Xinjiang and Tibet. 10,000 PAP forces were deployed in Xinjiang in 2017 to quell unrest among the Uyghur community.
The PAP come directly under the Central Military Commission led by Premier Xi Jinping. At an address in Beijing, Jinping on Monday vowed to “continue to fully and faithfully implement the principles of 'one country, two systems”. Lam, however, had said in a closed-door session that her role was now ‘very limited’ as the issue had been escalated to a national level.
China plans large military parades and celebrations on October 1, even as larger protests are planned in Hong Kong. Unrest over the weekend saw the fiercest clashes in weeks between protesters and security forces.
