Violent Clashes Between Police and Demonstrators Erupt in Hong Kong

The conflict appeared to last less than half an hour, and the two sides settled into an uneasy standoff nearing dawn. But the crackdown, which the police said had included the arrests of 45 protesters, further escalated tensions in this Asian financial center as the authorities showed growing impatience with demonstrations that have choked traffic for more than two weeks.

The swift police action to reopen the road near the offices of Hong Kong’s leader came hours after the Chinese government appeared to ramp up the pressure on Hong Kong’s authorities to act.

In comments carried by the China News Service, an official news agency, the Chinese government made its highest-level denunciation yet of the protesters, accusing them of pursuing a conspiracy to challenge Beijing’s power over the city.

Zhang Xiaoming, the head of the central Chinese government’s Liaison Office in Hong Kong, said the movement had “provoked” the central Chinese government and engaged in “radical forms of street confrontation,” the news service said.

Mr. Zhang said China’s central leadership was “paying very close attention to the current developments,” the report said.

 On Wednesday, the Chinese Communist Party gave another strong signal that it firmly supported Hong Kong’s leader, Leung Chun-ying, despite the calls in the city for him to step down. A front-page commentary in The People’s Daily, the party newspaper, praised Mr. Leung’s handling of the protests and said the calls for his dismissal from protesters were part of a plot to force the government into unacceptable concessions.

In the buildup to the confrontation on Wednesday, the police and protesters were locked in a struggle over roads, with the authorities removing some street barricades but not the main protest encampments.

On Tuesday morning, the police drove protesters off a major road called Queensway, using chain saws to dismantle the bamboo and plywood barricades that had been built there. Hours later, the protesters seized a tunnel on a harbor-front street named Lung Wo Road, which runs parallel to Queensway, making good on a promise to claim new roads if the government won some back.

In the latest clash, which started at around 3 a.m. on Wednesday, the police were able to clear the tunnel and reopen the road, pushing the protesters into a corner of Tamar Park, which sits atop the tunnel. The police wrestled some protesters to the ground.

Senior Superintendent Tsui Wai-hung of the Hong Kong Police told reporters early Wednesday morning that the 45 protesters had been arrested for unlawful assembly and for obstructing police law enforcement. The police and the government have been wary of arresting large numbers of protesters, apparently fearing that would turn them into symbols for democracy among the broader public.

According to the police superintendent, four police officers were injured.

He said the police would clear other protest sites but did not specify the timing.

Adding to the volatility of the standoff, Tamar Park is just several minutes’ walk from the main pro-democracy protest site, in the Admiralty neighborhood on the south side of Victoria Harbor. In calmer times, people often visit the park to take in a view of the water.

Some students accused the police of beating protesters.

“None of us used any force, while they charged into us; we ran, but they kept coming into us and beating us,” said George Wong, a 31-year-old artist.

Audrey Eu, the chairwoman of the democratic Civic Party and a member of Hong Kong’s legislature, said on Wednesday that a member of her party had been detained by the police at the demonstration, taken to a corner and kicked repeatedly, then taken to a police station and “slapped around.”

She said the party member was Ken Tsang, a volunteer social worker. One television station, TVB Pearl, broadcast footage of what appeared to be police officers kicking a protester, possibly Mr. Tsang, on the ground in a dark alley for several minutes.

“Whatever they might charge him with, both his hands were tied behind his back with a plastic tie, and he was carried by police officers to a dark corner where he was assaulted for four minutes,” Ms. Eu said, adding: “I don’t know what has come over the police. It’s criminal.”

The Hong Kong police said in a statement that they were concerned about the video footage and were investigating a related complaint.

The confrontation was the worst between the police and protesters since late September, when the police used tear gas on a large crowd of protesters, setting off an outpouring of public anger. As the rows of officers advanced across the park over the tunnel, the crowd first retreated, then regrouped and pressed toward the police lines, but then as the police kept moving forward much of the crowd fragmented into panicky groups.

“When the police really want to clear us, there’s not so much that we can do,” said Irene Lam, a university student, speaking as the police began to move into place to clear the tunnel. “We’re here to show our anger, but in the end we can’t oppose their strength.”

The protests have polarized Hong Kong society between supporters of demonstrators’ demands for electoral democracy and opponents who see the protests as disruptions to the city’s usual orderliness.

As dawn approached on Wednesday, hundreds of protesters in a corner of Tamar Park sat silently facing a cordon of a hundred or so police officers.

The mood among the protesters was one of calm resignation, with scant sign of any preparations for a renewed assault. “There are too many of them,” said Oscar Tung, an 18-year-old who works in a hair salon, as he sat on the ground with both a snorkeling mask and a surgical mask hanging around his neck as a precaution against a new assault of pepper spray or tear gas. “We can just wait outside and see what the police do.”

The students and the white-collar workers who joined them had hoped to hold off the police with improvised barricades that included trash cans and road signs piled atop police barricades that they had lashed together. Before the crackdown, they had been taking triumphant photos and shouting dismissive jeers as the police warned, on a loudspeaker, against the use of the barricades in their fortifications.

Earlier in the day, Hui Chun-tak, the chief police spokesman, said that the authorities’ efforts to shrink areas under the protesters’ control would continue. He said that the police planned to remove obstacles in the bustling Mong Kok neighborhood on the north side of Victoria Harbor, which has been the site of a raucous, occasionally violent street occupation. He gave no specific time for action in Mong Kok.

Nathan Road in Mong Kok, a usually busy shopping strip where demonstrators have blocked traffic, was busy with protest meetings on Tuesday night. Hundreds of police officers stood watch, but there were no signs of any impending operation to remove the barriers.

Several people in the crowd said the protesters at Mong Kok, where there is a higher proportion of workers and hardened political activists than in Admiralty, were likely to resist any police incursions fiercely. “No road opening without concessions from the government,” said one poster.

Vicky Koo, a social worker in the Mong Kok area, said: “Here there is no union or organization, and less students. If the police move in, it will be harder to control the conflict.”

Many protesters at Admiralty also vowed to resist, assertions that could prove brittle.

University students who said they had been involved in the confrontation overnight said Wednesday morning that they expected the police’s conduct to prompt a show of defiance at the main protest camp later in the day. “We lost a lot,” said Howard Chin, 19, a student at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. “At night, there will be many people coming to protest.”