The protests on the streets of Hong Kong have now been going for almost two months. Rather than dying down, as the authorities had hoped, they are intensifying. The number of demonstrations, the violence on the fringes of the marches and the demands of the protesters are all escalating.

The stand-off raises questions about the future of one of the world’s great business cities — and about the authority of the Chinese government to exercise sovereignty in Hong Kong, under “one country, two systems”.

Neither the authorities in Hong Kong nor in Beijing seem to have a workable plan to bring the situation under control. The protesters’ original grievance concerned a proposal to allow the extradition of criminal suspects from Hong Kong to mainland China. Faced with demonstrations of up to 2m people (more than 25 per cent of the territory’s population), the Hong Kong government withdrew the bill.