“Why have so many young people forgotten their roots and ancestry and disavowed their Chinese identity?” he asked during a recent interview with Global Times, a nationalistic, government-backed newspaper on the mainland. “I hope people from both sides stop now and behave the way Chinese people should behave.”

Mr. Ho certainly knows how to shock. He has called for advocates of Hong Kong independence to be “killed without mercy,” merrily welcomed intervention by Chinese troops to quell the unrest and uttered profanities against his political opponents in the Legislative Council.

Public rage against him mounted in late July, after a mob of men swinging wooden poles rampaged through a train station in Mr. Ho’s district, indiscriminately beating protesters, passengers and journalists, and leaving 45 injured. As the city was processing the spasm of violence, a video emerged of Mr. Ho glad-handing with the thugs and calling them “heroes.”

Mr. Ho said he was simply greeting his constituents, but he also suggested the perpetrators were trying only to protect their community from the maelstrom of political protest.

“Guarding your homeland is a very basic thing,” he said at a news conference he organized the next day, during which he pushed back against those who accused him of having a hand in the attack.

The demonstrations, prompted by a now-abandoned bill that would have allowed the extradition of criminal suspects to the mainland, have morphed into a cri de coeur against Beijing and its efforts to chip away at Hong Kong’s hallowed freedoms. The leadership’s decision to invoke emergency powers for its mask ban only heightened fears about the erosion of civil liberties, prompting more violent protests and clashes with the police on Friday night.