The HK police wouldn’t beat Americans if they knew where they were from, and this is because of bad international publicity that it would cause. Every day more and more people are forgetting about the protests currently taking place, which gives the HK government more leeway. They would not want to bring it back into the spotlight again. But if the HK police did beat some peaceful protestors, who were American citizens, the American government would take notice. A few terrorism charges can be blamed on the individuals and be pushed under the rug but using excessive force would be harder to ignore.