Hong Kong (AFP)

Of course, the trip does not have the same flavor when you fear being assaulted. In Hong Kong, tourists from mainland China are on the alert, persuaded to be targets when the protest against Beijing is radicalized.

"Recently, we were attacked by a group of young boys and girls dressed in black They shouted at us: + Get away! Go home! + We did not look for confrontation and we left," AFP told AFP Li Heying, 49 years old.

At the edge of the famous Hong Kong Bay, at a temperature of 34 degrees, this guide from mainland China, sunglasses on the nose, watches over twenty tourists taking a picture in front of a forest of huge skyscrapers. glass sky.

"As soon as there are protesters in one place, we avoid it because we risk getting hit," she says. She says that she has recorded 70% of cancellations in the last days, customers being cooled by the demonstrations.

The political crisis in Hong Kong, returned to China in 1997, was born in June from the opposition of many residents to a bill to allow extradition to mainland China - where justice is under the influence of the Party communist power.

Initially strictly peaceful, the movement has hardened for lack of dialogue, and the demonstrations have increasingly degenerated into clashes between the police and radicals throwing stones, bricks or even Molotov cocktails.

Beijing does not have the right to intervene in Hong Kong, an autonomous territory. But lambasted the actions of this radical fringe and agitated the specter of an intervention of the army - certainly unlikely. Words that fueled local resentment against the "mainlanders".

- Journalist beaten -

"I feel contempt in the eyes of some Hong Kong," says Mr. He, a 28-year-old worker who comes to visit his cousin.

Mainland Chinese are quickly identifiable. By their dress style, often less sophisticated, and by their language: most speak Mandarin while the Hong Kong speak Cantonese.

Last week, two Chinese accused of being Beijing spies - including a journalist - were beaten at the Hong Kong airport. The case made an uproar, the Chinese government talking about "quasi-terrorist" attacks and the press, oriented, gearing up in the denunciation of the violence.

"Taxi drivers, waiters, hotel employees ... everyone is nice," relativizes Zhu He, 36, who accompanies his son to a piano competition. "But I avoid talking politics."

"The Hong Kong people certainly have good reason to demonstrate, I totally understand, but it must remain non-violent," he says, an opinion representative of the majority of mainland Chinese interviewed by AFP.

Near the golden statue on the waterfront that represents the flower of bauhinia, emblem of Hong Kong, tourists wave little Chinese flags immediately recovered by their panicky guide, because an overzealous patriotism could be perceived as a provocation.

Right next door, Zhang Yidi, a 30-year-old actress who is photographing her son, says with a smile that Daddy "stayed at the hotel because he was a little scared".

She says she is not "too worried". "Because it's calm this week".

- "The brainless" -

Puzzled before her arrival, Chen Meili, a 25-year-old woman in a blue dress, said she was reassured by a Hong Kong friend.

"The local government handles the crisis well I find, because no death is regrettable," she says.

Under the approving eye of her Hong Kong friend, she denounces the protesters ("spoiled children"), including the perpetrators of violence ("brainless") and calls for "the intervention of the army" if things degenerate .

"The Hong Kong police are democratic, they leave a lot to be done, but it is true that we would like a return to calm, because the climate is a little deleterious," said Ms. Liang, a 33-year-old housewife.

She came to visit the Avenue of Stars, a walk lined with impressions of the glories of Hong Kong cinema, with her five-year-old daughter.

The latter, far from being worried about demonstrations, rather dreads the topic of conversation: "Sir, if you talk about politics and demonstrations in public, the police will stop you", she murmurs to a journalist of the AFP.

"No, we're in Hong Kong, darling, it's freedom of expression here," smiled her mom, kissing her.

© 2019 AFP