Speaking at a weekly news briefing on Tuesday, Hong Kong's chief secretary, Matthew Cheung, said he was disappointed with Sunday's rioting after a period of relative calm. All those who wish an end to the violence and a return to social stability in the special administrative region will have felt the same.

After a two-week lull, the police were forced to use tear gas on Sunday night when rioters stormed shopping centers, set fires, blocked roads and smashed traffic lights, igniting worries that their campaign of violence will continue.

The police said on Monday that students accounted for more than half of the people arrested during Sunday's violent incidents.

Worse, three people arrested for testing explosives on Saturday were charged with two offenses including the manufacture of explosives on Monday, showing how perverted and dangerous the thinking of some of the rioters has become.

This was not the first incident involving an improvised explosive device and the Hong Kong police have seized toxic chemicals and explosive materials in multiple places throughout the city in the past few weeks, highlighting that it is not just the odd one or two who have developed bloodlust.

In fact, the rioters in Hong Kong have repeatedly demonstrated how cold-blooded they can be in the vanity of their trumped up cause, having frequently put residents and visitors' lives at risk with both reckless and calculated acts of vandalism targeting public transport. Not to mention their vicious attacks on members of the public who have had the courage to criticize their actions and their relentless persecution of the police.

Those within and without the SAR who are supporting the rioters out of a misguided sense of loyalty to the values the rioters claim to be blazonly upholding should take a long hard look at the callous disregard the rioters are showing to those values in the abandoning of their civil duties.

The violent lawbreaking in Hong Kong seriously tramples on social order and thus the rights of those in Hong Kong who abide by the law. With the central leadership extending its firm support to Hong Kong's chief executive on Monday, another of the protesters' conceits has been given short shrift.

And its reiteration of its unswerving determination to protect national sovereignty, security and development interests, and implement the "one country, two systems" policy and oppose any external forces interfering in Hong Kong's affairs shows that no matter how long the rioters persist with their campaign of violence, it will be to no effect.

Hong Kong has experienced trials and tribulations in the past, each time it has emerged stronger. It will do so this time too, despite the best efforts of those hoping to exploit young people's naivety for their own ends.