HONG KONG — How and why have Hong Kongers managed to keep going for months, and in such large numbers, waging wave after wave of protest to oppose encroachment from China, despite the vast differences among them?

One major point of contention concerns whether to resort to nonpeaceful action and how close to skirt with violence. Take the occupation of the Hong Kong airport early last week. The sit-in, supposedly a peaceful initiative, devolved into clashes with the police and was marred after some protesters roughed up two mainlanders they suspected of being infiltrators sent by China. (One of the two turned out to be a reporter with the much-disdained Global Times, the hard-line media face of the authorities in Beijing.) Amid fears that the movement’s unity might unravel, some protesters then apologized, saying they had committed inappropriate acts in the heat of passion.

But the turnout at a student-led rally on Friday and then at another more traditional and peaceful huge march on Sunday proved those concerns wrong.

The rally, at which I spoke, was organized by the student unions of a dozen postsecondary schools, in conjunction with an influential internet protest group whose name in Cantonese slang translates ominously as “I Want to Perish Together” (meaning together with my powerful oppressor). The name reflects the prevailing sentiment, especially among the younger generations, that Hong Kong has just about exhausted all peaceful means to defend itself against China’s systematic efforts to chip away at the city’s semi-autonomy. The rally’s organizers called on the British government to declare that China, in so interfering, is violating a 1984 treaty with Britain that anticipated Hong Kong’s special status after Britain handed it over to China in 1997. They also urged the United States Congress to pass a law that would punish Hong Kong officials who blatantly violate the democratic and human rights of the city’s citizens, by freezing their assets in the United States and denying them visa privileges.