Escalating violence in SAR reveals Western media's ill intentions: China Daily editorial

Violence has continued unabated in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region even as Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor is actively building a platform for dialogue in a bid to foster cohesiveness in society and find ways to bring the city back to the development track.

That the demonstrators refuse to end the violence and some Western media outlets continue to ignore their unlawful acts shows there is more to the demonstrations than meets the eye.

Although the numbers of demonstrators and riots have declined over the past few weeks, probably because of the public fury over the serious disruption of normal life and economic activities, the intensity of the violence has been on the rise.

Recent weeks have seen a surge in gasoline bomb attacks on police officers. The situation worsened over the weekend when the radical demonstrators targeted police vehicles with more such bombs. Some even tried to snatch the service revolvers from the police officers.

Yet law enforcement officers are not the only targets of the insurrectionists. On Sunday, the demonstrators again vandalized a subway station, smashing closed-circuit cameras and electronic sensors.

Such has been the impact of the demonstrations and violence on residents' lives and livelihoods that the silent majority in the SAR has decided to speak out against the mayhem. Saying enough is enough, many among the silent majority are openly protesting against the demonstrators and their unlawful behaviors.

The demonstrators' outrageous acts have been captured in photographs published in those local newspapers that still adhere to professional ethics and in news video clips posted online.

Such visual evidence speaks louder than words about the crimes committed by the radical demonstrators. Which makes one wonder how some foreign media outlets, eschewing their conscience and journalistic ethics, could still publish biased news reports and commentaries claiming the rioters are fighting for "freedom" and "democracy" when they are doing exactly the opposite — by violating other Hong Kong residents' rights and freedom.

On Friday, the Hong Kong Police Force briefed the foreign media about the grim situation they are facing and rebutted unfounded accusations against them.

If some Western media outlets continue to disseminate their one-sided views even after this, they will only further expose their prejudice against China and "one country, two systems".

Unfortunately, the fact is that the anti-China "ideology" is the underlying cause of the violent demonstrations, which some Western media outlets are encouraging to wreak havoc in the city and help the demonstrators seize the power to govern the Hong Kong SAR and thus curb China's rise.

But if they believe they will succeed in their evil design, they are living in a fool's paradise.