Televised images make the clashes between protesters and local police appear chaotic and violent, but up close the incidents seemed controlled and almost ceremonial.

In Wednesday's scuffle, about 200 protesters - mostly Koreans under the banner of the Korean Federation of Trade Unions - separated from a larger group near the cargo area, broke through a police line and confronted a security cordon in the same place they engaged police the day before.

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Then about 20 protesters, wearing cling wrap to protect their eyes from pepper spray, repeatedly walked up to the cordon and attempted to break through the police line.

The injuries occurred in the confrontation, but no stones were thrown, no firebombs hurled and no one was arrested.

Earlier in the day, a smaller group of Koreans and protesters from the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions held brief demonstrations in front of the United States and European Union consulates in Central.

The group, led by the Korean Federation of Trade Unions, chanted, engaged in brief sit-downs and stopped traffic twice on Garden Road. They also pasted stickers on the consulate buildings to protest the General Agreement on Trade and Services, or GATS, a cornerstone of WTO negotiations.

EU spokesman Thomas Roe met with the protesters for about five minutes in front of the consulate under the protection of at least 20 police officers.

Throughout the day, demonstrators stopped short of the kind of violence that occurred at past WTO meetings.

The specter of rampant violence haunted the run-up to the meeting, with security officials issuing repeated warnings and mobilizing riot police to maintain order.

Protest leaders, coordinated by the Hong Kong People's Alliance, negotiated with police and promised that the protests would be peaceful.

But, in a city unaccustomed to rowdy protest, the relatively mild violence that has occurred so far has been played up in the local media.

"Korean war erupts" said the Oriental Daily News, while Beijing- backed newspaper Ta Kung Pao said: "The biggest confrontation since the Hong Kong handover erupted in anti- WTO protest. The originally peaceful atmosphere has been ruined by some of the Korean protesters."

But protest figure and lawmaker "Long Hair" Leung Kwok-hung praised the Koreans, saying they are showing restraint and consideration for their surroundings.

"They are holding back so as not to alienate Hong Kong people," Leung said.

"If they wanted to, they could have easily stormed past the police line and created chaos. But they know that then they would be quite isolated here."

Using what protesters say is an "Inside-Outside" approach to their actions, the protest groups are working with allies inside the convention center in an attempt to coordinate protests on the basis of what is being discussed at the talks.

They want to keep up a symbolic confrontation for the cameras and, as a result, will march to the cordon every day until Sunday when the WTO meeting closes, protesters say.

One of Wednesday's protesters, Sinapan Samydorai of the NGO Think Centre Singapore, said: "It will escalate till the 18th. This is a protest against what is going on inside [the convention center] to make them listen to us."

It was not violent because the police had played their cards well, Samydorai said. "The police and security were very smart to negotiate with the HKPA [in advance]."

Yan Chung, who represents the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions, said the confrontations Wednesday went well.

"[It was] a very good performance, a very strong demonstration by the Koreans. They are so organized," she said.

James Goodman, of the Australian group AidWatch, said that the protests are an attempt to demonstrate how desperate poor farmers and workers are in the face of competition from large corporations whose interests are heavily represented in the WTO trade talks.

The careful confrontation between police and a few demonstrators are "public relations on both sides," said Samydorai.

"This is a skill you need to learn. It's a space for democracy. You negotiate on both sides."

Ho-soon Park, one of the Koreans on the front lines, was asked how protesting in Hong Kong compared to the often violent clashes back home.

"It's a little bit easier," he said.