Hundreds of protesters faced off with police in Hong Kong over a piece of land that will automatically belong to China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) on Saturday.
Police in regular uniforms held up transparent shields as they lined the entrance to the strip land on an otherwise public waterfront and park area that was scheduled to be handed over to the PLA for use as a naval berth.
Live video streams from the scene showed protesters chanting slogans and waving umbrellas. Earlier, a group had gained access to the land and hung a banner from the sea wall that read: "Give us back our waterfront."
The land will automatically be ceded to the PLA in spite of bids to delay the process by pro-democracy lawmakers. The president of the city's Legislative Council (LegCo) adjourned a meeting that was discussing opposition amendments until next week, effective rendering the debate moot.
The standoff came after more than 2,000 protesters gathered outside LegCo earlier in the evening in the latest protest against plans to change Hong Kong's extradition laws to allow the rendition of alleged criminal suspects to face trial in mainland China.
The protests came as campaigners raised millions of Hong Kong dollars in crowdfunding to place advertisements in major overseas newspapers ahead of the G20 summit in Japan at the weekend.
China has ruled out the possibility of discussing a string of massive protests in recent weeks at the summit, and advertisements appealed to readers to "Stand With Hong Kong at the G20."
Call for global pressure
Protesters chanted : "Withdraw the evil China renditions law!" and "Release the protesters!" in reference to those arrested in the wake of clashes on June 12, and following a siege of police headquarters on Wednesday night.
A student surnamed Pak said he took part in a bid to keep up the pressure on the government.
"I think it's important to carry on speaking out for the people of Hong Kong ahead of the G20 summit," Pak said.
"We want to let the citizens of the world know that they should keep paying attention to this issue, so the governments of the world keep up the pressure on the governments of mainland China and the [Hong Kong] Special Administrative Region."
A participant surnamed Ma said the administration of chief executive Carrie Lam had paid no attention to the protesters' demands.
"We felt pretty helpless to start with, because we have been on so many demonstrations, and the government has made no response," Ma said.
"But they won't be able to carry on like that if the heads of state of all the other countries bring it up [at the G20]," she said.
Organizers of the annual July 1 mass protest march marking the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997 said the anti-extradition laws will likely swell the ranks of those taking part.
Government's 'acceptability and legitimacy' damaged
Mass protests have seen protests numbering an estimated one and two million take to the streets in recent weeks, amid growing anger over the extradition amendments, and the use of tear gas, rubber and textile bullets, pepper spray and batons by police on unarmed protesters on June 12.
Pro-democracy campaigner and former politics professor Joseph Cheng said it was unclear where the protest movement will go if Lam's administration continues to ignore its demands.
"This is a very difficult situation, because everyone has become polarized," Cheng said. "Carrie Lam's administration has already missed the optimum time for making concessions."
"The protests may be dwindling in size, but I believe that the popular anger is still there," he said. "It's going to be very hard to repair the government's acceptability and legitimacy [in the eyes of the public]."
The amendments are widely seen as a threat to Hong Kong's way of life, which was supposed to have been protected under the "one country, two systems" framework under which the former British colony was handed back to China in 1997.
If they become law, the city could lose its status as a separate legal jurisdiction and trading entity, while journalists, visitors, rights activists, dissidents, democratic politicians, and members of the business community could be targeted for words and actions deemed illegal by the ruling Chinese Communist Party, and extradited to face trial in Chinese courts.
Pro-democracy lawmakers say the only solution to recurring mass protests in Hong Kong is for the government to allow fully democratic elections, a demand that was rejected by the Chinese Communist Party in 2014, sparking the Occupy Central, or Umbrella Movement.
Hong Kong's lawyers have also come out in support of protesters, saying that the extradition bill should be withdrawn completely, as opposed to the postponement offered by Carrie Lam earlier this month.
Reported by Wen Yuqing for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by the Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.