These are being perpetrated by the so-called "Black Bloc," roving bands of mask-wearing, police-tactic defying vandals attacking randomly around the city to disrupt people going to work.
Pepe Escobar has been doing exemplary work in recent months covering the ins and outs of Asian politics. His latest article covers the "Black Bloc," their tactics and who's likely behind them in Hong Kong:
"More likely to be informed is Hong Kong garment and media tycoon Jimmy Lai, billionaire publisher of the pro-democracy Apple Daily, the city's Chinese Communist Party critic-in-chief and highly visible interlocutor of official Washington, DC, notables such as US Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and ex-National Security Council head John Bolton.Jimmy Lai is telling you what the strategy is here. The goal is to thoroughly undermine China's standing on the world stage and raise that of the U.S. This is economic warfare, it's a hybrid war tactic. And the soldiers are radicalized kids in uniforms bonking old men on the heads with sticks and taunting cops.
"On September 6, before the onset of the deranged vandalism and violence that have defined Hong Kong "pro-democracy protests" over the past several weeks, Lai spoke with Bloomberg TV's Stephen Engle from his Kowloon home.
"He pronounced himself convinced that - if protests turned violent China would have no choice but to send People's Armed Police units from Shenzen into Hong Kong to put down unrest.
"That," he said on Bloomberg TV, "will be a repeat of the Tiananmen Square massacre and that will bring in the whole world against China..... Hong Kong will be done, and ... China will be done, too."
Comment: From Sputnik, 14/10/2019: Hospital allegedly 'destroyed' in Syria is well-protected terrorist bunker