HONG KONG — On the boisterous, steamy streets here, the man leading Hong Kong’s government has been likened in recent days to a vampire, a wolf, dog excrement and a criminal, his portrait adorning homemade “wanted” posters.
Student protesters have even refashioned a stranded city bus into a coffin for Leung Chun-ying, the chief executive of Hong Kong and an ally of Communist Party leaders in Beijing. A sign on the bus said, “To hell.”
Mr. Leung, 60, is the man President Xi Jinping of China is relying on to quell the enormous pro-democracy protests that have gripped this financial capital and pose one of the biggest challenges in years to Communist Party rule. At the same time, Mr. Leung has become a main target of the protests, blamed for authorizing the riot police to use tear gas on the protesters and seen as a symbol of Hong Kong’s lack of democracy.
As he is squeezed ever tighter by both sides, he now has a third problem to reckon with: saving his own job.
A call for his ouster has become a unifying demand of the tens of thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators who have taken to the streets since Friday, and some political analysts say removing him may be the easiest course for Beijing, placating the protesters in the short term without giving in to the broader demands for open elections in Hong Kong.
While Mr. Leung’s words since the crisis erupted — including a Champagne toast on Wednesday to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China — have unstintingly toed Beijing’s line, his actions illustrate a shifting calculus in the face of competing pressures.
On Thursday, People’s Daily, the main newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, said in a front-page editorial that the party firmly backed Mr. Leung. The editorial said that Beijing would continue to “unswervingly” support him and would “resolutely support the police force of the special administrative territory in dealing with illegal activities according to the law.”
On Sunday, Mr. Leung ordered the riot police to confront peaceful protesters with tear gas and pepper spray. When that backfired, greatly expanding the number of protesters, he pulled the police back on Monday. On Tuesday, he appeared to seek a middle ground, acknowledging that the protests would “last for quite a long period of time,” a signal that he and other officials were digging in for a war of attrition, and a bet that business-focused Hong Kong would eventually tire of the disruption and the protesters would lose support.
The constant recalibration reflects a tricky balancing act, supporters and critics alike acknowledge.
“The constitutional arrangement according to the Basic Law says the chief executive has to serve two masters, the central government and the people of Hong Kong,” said Lau Nai-keung, a businessman and politician who has known Mr. Leung since the 1980s, when they both worked on drafting the Basic Law, the mini-constitution that governs Hong Kong. “He has to walk a tightrope.”
It is a precarious path that Mr. Leung knows well. To his supporters, he remains a working-class hero, the son of a Hong Kong police officer who rose to become a wealthy real-estate services executive. He came to the job as an economic populist, and since taking office two years ago he has won favor in some quarters by adopting policies giving Hong Kong residents an advantage over mainland Chinese and foreigners in purchasing property in Hong Kong, and limiting the influx of pregnant mainland women trying to give birth here to get their children Hong Kong residency.
But he has also amassed a record of doing Beijing’s bidding, and recent polls give him low approval ratings. In an early defeat, he backed a China-slanted patriotic education curriculum in Hong Kong schools in 2012. After mass student street protests, the program was vetoed by Hong Kong lawmakers.
That protest victory bolstered the belief by many of the same students that they could again stand up to Beijing this year. What lesson Mr. Leung took away was less clear.
He has refused to meet with the protesters and on Wednesday, as they heckled his speech, he urged an end to the demonstrations and offered them no words of sympathy. Instead, he said “all sectors of the community” should work with the government in “a peaceful, lawful, rational and pragmatic manner.”
Then he clinked Champagne glasses with Zhang Xiaoming, China’s top official for Hong Kong affairs.
Not known for theatrics or seeking the spotlight, Mr. Leung has a reputation as a cautious and bland politician who speaks in a stilted manner and wears a constant smile. While it is not clear how much authority he or any other chief executive has beyond carrying out Beijing’s wishes, critics say the chief executive should be Hong Kong’s advocate in Beijing, not the other way around.
Moreover, the fact that he holds office at all is, to democracy advocates, an example of everything they are fighting against.
Protesters mock him with the nickname “689,” a pointed reminder of the number of votes he won to take office in this city of seven million. It was a poor showing even on the 1,200-member election committee stacked heavily with Beijing’s allies.
That process lies at the heart of the current protests. China has promised that the chief executive’s position will be elected by universal suffrage starting in 2017, but recently imposed rules effectively allowing Beijing to vet the candidates.
When Mr. Leung ran for chief executive, critics repeatedly raised the question of whether he was a secret member of the Chinese Communist Party. Martin Lee, a prominent pro-democracy politician, said Mr. Leung must have been a party member to have been appointed at the age of 31 to the committee advising on the Basic Law.
Mr. Leung denied the charges, though many Hong Kong residents harbor suspicions, since most of the estimated 3,000 party members here never admit to their status. After Mr. Leung won the chief executive job, People’s Daily, referred to him as “comrade,” a term officially reserved for party members. The word was later deleted from the online posting.
During a televised campaign debate, his main opponent, Henry Tang, raised more questions about Mr. Leung’s loyalties by saying Mr. Leung had argued in a closed meeting in 2003 that the riot police should be deployed against protesters marching against a planned anti-subversion law pushed by Beijing.
“I have absolutely never said that,” Mr. Leung insisted, but Mr. Tang said he had heard the words himself in the meeting.
Mr. Leung has dodged questions trying to pinpoint his judgment on the Tiananmen Square massacre ordered by Communist Party leaders in 1989, even though he condemned the bloodshed in the immediate aftermath.
The question now is whether party leaders will ultimately sacrifice Mr. Leung to pacify the protesters. Though Mr. Xi has not made any significant political concessions since taking power in 2012, removing Mr. Leung would be easier than reversing Beijing’s August decision to deny Hong Kong open elections.
Nicholas Bequelin, a visiting scholar at Yale University and a longtime resident of Hong Kong, said that would allow Beijing to shift blame for the turmoil onto Mr. Leung, “a very expedient way for Xi Jinping not to be seen as responsible for not handling Hong Kong correctly.”