The noisy demonstration at the start of the speech by Li Fei, a deputy secretary general of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's legislature, was a rare occasion on which a Beijing official faced open defiance. The widely expected announcement sets the stage for escalating confrontations between China's central government and democracy supporters in Hong Kong who have pledged to carry out a civil disobedience campaign that could culminate in a mass protest to cripple the city's financial district.