HONG KONG — With protests in Hong Kong in their 15th week, and violent clashes becoming almost routine, some used the latest rally as an appeal to the international community to intervene and break the stalemate between pro-democracy protesters and the Hong Kong government.

Many of the people taking part Sunday held umbrellas while they walked, shielding themselves from the afternoon sun, while others also waved United States flags as they marched through the streets. Several protesters told BuzzFeed News that they were carrying a foreign country’s flag because they wanted to look beyond their own government as the situation becomes more and more intractable.

“I don’t think the Hong Kong government can do any more because they have to obey the Chinese Communist Party,” said Candice Wong, a protester in her forties, who held a large American flag as she stood outside Chater Garden.

Wong said she was waving the flag both as an appeal to the US government, showing her support for the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act that is currently in the US Senate, and to represent the values that she too hopes Hong Kong can ultimately fulfill. She and several other protesters who spoke with BuzzFeed News cited the Senate bill by name when talking about their hopes for US intervention.

Last weekend, protesters marched to the US Consulate with a similar appeal, with at least one banner calling on President Donald Trump to “liberate Hong Kong.”

The bipartisan bill, which was introduced in June by Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida with seven cosponsors, would sanction Hong Kong and Chinese officials who have been found to be complicit in suppressing basic freedoms in Hong Kong. Over the past week, more Senators have signed on to the bill, including Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat from New York, and Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine.

Rubio recently published an op-ed in the Washington Post criticizing China’s encroachment on Hong Kong’s freedoms and calling for the US to not stand idly by. “The United States and the international community must make clear to Chinese leaders and power brokers that their aggression toward Hong Kong risks swift, severe and lasting consequences,” Rubio wrote.

Since the protests kicked off in June over an extradition bill that would allow people to be sent to mainland China to face trial, protesters have had five demands, including withdrawing the bill, investigating police violence, and universal suffrage.

China first responded by censoring the protests in the mainland, and since has blamed “foreign interference” for the unrest. A recent China Daily editorial cited the presence of US flags at the protests as further evidence that the protests were still continuing only because of outside forces. Beijing has also warned the US not to get involved in Hong Kong in direct statements from the Foreign Ministry.

As the crowd made its way from Causeway Bay to Central, a main shopping and business hub of the city, Kyle Tsang, another protester dressed in all black, waved a US flag atop a bus shelter to cheers from the crowd, as they chanted “five demands, not one less.”