13-year-old boy among 38 held after shopping protest scuffles
Print Edition
Hong Kong police said yesterday that they arrested 38 people after a protest on Sunday against the growing number of shoppers from China’s mainland.
Police officers drew batons and used pepper spray after scuffles broke out in a border town with protesters clashing with residents opposed to the demonstration who had taunted them along the route.
Police said a 13-year-old boy was among those arrested and 10 officers had been injured.
Sunday’s demonstration was the third major protest in the past month.
The protesters marched in the suburban district of Yuen Long, near the border with the mainland. The route went through a neighborhood with dozens of pharmacies selling imported baby formula to cater to mainland shoppers wary of domestic brands after repeated food safety scares including a deadly 2008 melamine-tainted milk scandal.
Baby formula is such a hot commodity for mainland visitors that Hong Kong, which has a reputation for authentic and high-quality goods, restricts the amount people can take out of the city.
Smartphones, cosmetics, medicine and luxury goods are also popular purchases in Hong Kong, where a lack of sales tax makes them cheaper. The shoppers, usually seen in big groups with large suitcases, often work for shadowy networks that organize the resale of the goods across the border for a profit, in what’s known as parallel trading.
“There is a lot of anger from other people on smugglers because we just don’t like how they drive up all the prices, drive up everything, create a lot of chaos, and we aren’t benefiting from it,” said protester Kelvin Lee, who was with Hong Kong Indigenous, one of two groups that organized the demonstration.
The Yuen Long demonstration follows two other rowdy protests at shopping malls in other parts of Hong Kong’s northern suburbs last month. Police also drew batons and unleashed pepper spray against protesters heckling mainland shoppers at those demonstrations, arresting a total of 19 people.
Last year, 47.3 million mainlanders visited the city, up 16 percent from the year before. Mainland visitors are estimated to be responsible for a third of retail sales in Hong Kong.
The Hong Kong government says it’s trying to clamp down on parallel trading. More than 1,900 mainlanders have been arrested in the past two years on suspicion of being involved while 25,000 others have been banned from the city.
Lee said residents were fed up with the traffic jams and piles of garbage created by mainland shoppers who have a reputation for bad manners and loutish behavior.
“A lot of mainland shoppers who come to shop block the roads with their luggage,” he said, adding that they also leave a lot of rubbish, such as the cardboard boxes from their purchases.
Residents also say the shopping sprees drive up rents and force out ordinary shopkeepers.
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