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 Council 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 a widespread anxiety among Hong Kong residents: that the former British colony risks irrelevance as it is swallowed up by an increasingly wealthy and powerful China. Beijing is using this week's unrest to put its own spin on events, sending protesters the message that their actions are more likely to speed up than slow down that trend.
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