Opinion | To end the Hong Kong protests, the Chinese leadership must blink first and offer to negotiate

In this sense, the impeachment hearings in the United States are no less dramatic than the street demonstrations in Hong Kong; they are only superficially bloodless and reveal the heart of the US polity as perhaps as emotionally divided as Hong Kong. The unhappy Hongkonger and the unhappy American have more in common than the news media might reveal.

History throws up heroes as well as villains. The US is now getting a picture of a sector of heroes ordinarily mostly invisible. Last week, US foreign service careerists testified before a Congressional committee looking into accusations that US President Donald Trump froze US military aid to get Ukraine to investigate the family of his potential 2020 election rival Joe Biden. One was a woman who had won State Department honours several times in her 33-year career. Earlier this year she was US ambassador to Ukraine, then one day she was not: US President Donald Trump had pulled the plug on her for reasons shadowy.

This is not quite the same as, say, the torching of a mass-transit station. But it is ugly all the same and an arrow to the heart of a great meritocracy: the US foreign service. If nothing else emerges from the Trump impeachment hearings, US taxpayers will have got their money’s worth if they gain an appreciation of the special quality of our diplomats. By proud tradition, they are the last to give up on a peace process, and so the sight of their reputations being tainted by grandstanding politicians made me want to go out and torch a mass-transit station myself – I am almost not exaggerating.

By contrast, the heroes of the Hong Kong stand-off would be – for most people – the protesters who do not burn anyone or make bombs or shoot arrows at police officers. But good people are being used by self-absorbed radicals putting at risk the moral high ground and global and local support.