Laughter and tears go together. That truism was reaffirmed in Hong Kong on Wednesday, 24 hours after the grandstanding in China on the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic. Anger and sorrow fuelled fresh demonstrations after the injury to 18-year-old Tsang Chi-kin in police firing. The incident has lent a new dimension to the upheaval in the island nation, decidedly the worst since Britain’s handover to China in 1997. It is an escalation of force that has intensified the standoff between protesters and authorities.

A protester’s cry ~ “This means war’’ ~ aptly summed up the awesomely volatile situation. It is a measure of the latest involvement of senior school students that the protesters marched through the city centre, organised sit-ins at schools and gathered at a courtroom where other demonstrators faced rioting charges. Thousands more joined largely peaceful rallies across Hong Kong, denouncing the police brutality. Some even called for the police force to be disbanded.

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The demonstrators held their hands over the left side of their chests in tribute to 18-year-old Tsang Chi-kin, who was shot at point-blank range on Tuesday, with the bullet narrowly missing his heart. The shooting has shocked the city, if not mainland China. Despite frequent use of teargas, water cannon, and other less lethal forms of violence over nearly four months of protests, officers had previously only fired their guns in warning. This time it was what they call a surgical strike on a teenager.

Tsang’s grievous injury and the wider chaos of Tuesday’s protests, called to mark the 70th anniversary of Communist rule in China as a “day of grief”, appeared to have further radicalised both demonstrators and their opponents. The police offered two options ~ either a curfew or for the government to bring in harsh colonial-era emergency powers, claiming its officers were working in “warzone- like” conditions. Tuesday’s chaos was the worst violence in the city since the protest movement began.

Police had refused organisers a permit to march, but tens of thousands of people defied the ruling. The robust call for disbanding the police is in itself a critical development. The starkly contradictory responses of pro-Beijing politicians and protesters are suggestive of an almost hopelessly fractured society. Pro-Beijing politicians backed its demands and defended the police officer who opened fire. They urged the government to enact an emergency law to stop the riots. At another remove, protesters warned the Hong Kong authorities that they would not back down. Hong Kong is on the boil, in parallel to the anniversary euphoria in mainland China.