Water cannon fires blue dye amid illegal protesters when rioters attacked the HKSAR government complex with Molotov cocktails on September 29 in Hong Kong. Photo: Chen Qingqing/GT

Far from many people's expectations and predictions, rioters in Hong Kong continued setting fire, vandalizing public facilities, attacking police vehicles and officers over the weekend after the conclusion of city district council election. 

Observers said the pan-democracy camp, or the opposition camp, were not really winning the election as they were unable to stop violence that is pushing the city on the edge of a cliff, and although they want to seize political power through political measures after the turmoil, they are unavoidably being used by external forces to make the city continuously suffer from instability and violence. 

A total of 58 rioters were arrested over the past weekend in Hong Kong, the youngest 14, for illegal possession of weapons and other violent activities, Hong Kong police said at a press conference on Monday.

Leung Chun-ying, a former Hong Kong chief executive, said on his personal Facebook account on Sunday that violence will not be ended only because of the pan-democracy camp win in the district council election, and rioters will be more aggressive. 

Kennedy Wong Ying-ho, a solicitor of the Supreme Court of Hong Kong, told the Global Times on Monday that the pan-democracy camp including extreme protesters and rioters are unlikely to stop their violent measures as they found violence was helpful for them to seize political power and win the election against the pro-establishment camp. 

Photo:Xinhua

According to Wong, the pan-democracy politicians in the opposition camp cannot control the rioters, who he said are controlled and manipulated by foreign forces, especially through financial support and online propaganda among social media networks. 

The foreign forces led by the US clearly know that the campaign for seizing political power of the HKSAR is doomed to fail, so supporting violence is just a way to make troubles for the Chinese central government, Wong said. 

"The opposition camp and rioters are pawns of foreign forces," Wong said, "who will very likely be abandoned by Washington if Beijing reached deal with it on other issues." 

The unrest and violence brought hard times to all walks of life in Hong Kong, Wong said, which changed nothing positively after the victory for the pan-democracy camp in the district election. 

Paul Chan Mo-po, financial secretary of Hong Kong, said on Monday said that due to the months-long turmoil, third-quarter GDP declined 2.9 percent year-on-year.