In a highly symbolic act, mainland Chinese soldiers in black shorts and olive drab T-shirts jogged out of a barracks here to clear streets of bricks, metal bars and other debris left by demonstrators after one of the most violent weeks in five months of pro-democracy protests.
China has garrisoned People’s Liberation Army troops in Hong Kong since the 1997 handover of the former British colony. The soldiers here mostly keep to their barracks and are broadly meant to operate in the city only if the local government asks for assistance.
The presence of the soldiers, even dressed in what amounted to jogging attire, undertaking a brief but politically charged act of removing roadblocks left by Hong Kong’s protesters fueled speculation about the extent of their future role in the semiautonomous city.
The possibility that mainland China might use its military to crush Hong Kong’s protest movement has hung over the demonstrations for months.
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