© ReutersElevated walkway buring during clashes between rioters and police outside Hong Kong Polytechnic University, November 17, 2019.
Instead of reacting like how many of their peers elsewhere would have done under similar circumstances, the police chose to respond in a very calm manner and with utmost caution.
The Hong Kong police are aware that those rioters have been indoctrinated by foreign forces, and while that doesn't absolve those who committed crimes of their guilt, it made the authorities realize that not all of the participants were in their right mind. Furthermore, they're also fellow residents of Hong Kong, which is another reason why the police didn't want to resort to using forcible measures that would have been completely justified had they absolutely needed to do so.
That in and of itself debunks the foreign media's agenda-driven "reporting" about the crisis, which manufactured the narrative that a bloodbath was about to ensue as the sole result of the police's supposedly impending crackdown.
There was certainly a lot of destruction that occurred, but that was due to the rioters and had nothing to do with the police's reaction to their provocation. Instead of biting the bait, the authorities stayed back and let events naturally unfold, which ultimately saw the crisis run out of steam on its own.
This wise approach gave the comparatively "moderate" rioters who got involved in the situation the opportunity to peacefully surrender, which many of them did after realizing the hopelessness of what they were trying to achieve.
Had they soberly thought about the crisis that they were starting in advance, they'd have realized the impossibility of a group of rioters holding their city of over seven million people hostage and getting the government to submit to their illegal demands out of desperation to defuse the crisis.
The foreign forces and their local cadre of collaborators who encouraged the rioters to spark the crisis and carry it on for as long as they did are fully responsible for everything that happened as a result. They seemingly intended for people to get killed in order to then portray some of the fallen rioters as "martyrs" for re-energizing their political crusade, which was doomed from the get-go but didn't seem so to those who had been indoctrinated by foreign influences into thinking otherwise.
On the other hand, the professionalism of the Hong Kong police is responsible for why the crisis didn't escalate, and it also shows that law enforcement representatives don't have a "bloodlust" like some foreign media have claimed. The weaponized information warfare narrative that the police are "oppressing innocent citizens" was discredited for the entire world to see by the very fact that the police were responsible for preventing bloodshed, not causing it.
That doesn't mean that they didn't have the right to more forcibly respond to the situation, but just that they decided not to at this time for the reasons that were explained. The Chinese people are united as one, which includes both regular folks and those who work with the state. Unless there's no other way to resolve a security crisis, the police will always attempt to do so as peacefully as possible because no patriotic citizen wants to harm their compatriots.
While some foreign media are attempting to portray the Hong Kong Polytechnic University crisis as a "heroic struggle" by a bunch of "freedom fighters," it was actually a genuinely heroic struggle fought by Hong Kong residents who volunteered to protect the rule of law in their city by becoming police officers. This is obvious to anyone who objectively assesses what transpired across the course of this crisis, and it's only a matter of time before the rest of the world realizes it.
Targets are not simply HK Govt departments and enterprises. The Prime Minister of Singapore expressed an opinion last week and the Development Bank of Singapore in Hong Kong was trashed the next day. A banker was beaten up for saying 'we are all Chinese.' A construction worker who disputed with some students was set on fire. Elderly retired people who have tried to remove the barriers the children place across streets to prevent bus movements are attacked. They explain propriety to the students and get trite insults in return with lasers flashed in their faces. These are people who cannot tolerate criticism and respond violently. We are yet to hear their argument in support of their acts. The legal academics and democratic legislators (all lawyers) who put them up to rioting are quiet now, recognising that there is no support for their scholasticism except in the Catholic Church.
Meanwhile western financiers of the Soros school are shorting the HK Stock Exchange and currency but have been losing money as China invests to prevent their profiting. They have achieved a slight drop in the index but for the extent of their bets, it must be disappointing. The US Legislature has enacted a bill to promote democracy in Hong Kong as though such a thing was conceivable. If it gets the President's signature it will become law. The Hong Kong Govt can have no opinion on the legislative acts of foreigners but the American community here might have an opinion - we'll have to wait and see.
All in all, without foreign stimulation and provocations the riots would end now. Let's see.