Shawdesh Desk: Hong Kong police fired beanbag rounds and used pepper spray in late night skirmishes with pro-democracy protesters, broadcaster RTHK said on Wednesday.

Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets since mid-June in sometimes violent protests calling for greater democracy in the former British colony, posing a direct challenge to the central Chinese government in Beijing.

Police cleared demonstrators from outside the Mong Kok police station and in Prince Edward metro station, with one person taken out on a stretcher with an oxygen mask over his face, government-funded RTHK reported.

Hong Kong’s leader Carrie Lam told a group of business people last week that she had ‘very, very limited’ ability to end the crisis and it had been elevated ‘to a national level.’ Her comments in an audio recording of the meeting were reported by Reuters on Tuesday.

Lam also added that she would step down if she had a choice, fuelling protesters’ claims that the partial autonomy granted to Hong Kong under a ‘one country, two systems’ agreement is being slowly eroded by Beijing.

Lam on Tuesday said she had never discussed resignation with Beijing and believed her government could solve the crisis without Beijing’s help.

With protesters and Lam’s government at an impasse there are concerns Hong Kong’s economy could go into a tailspin.

Hong Kong’s private sector activity declined at the fastest pace in more than a decade in August as protests and an escalating trade war hit demand, data showed on Wednesday.