HONG KONG (Dispatches) – The main representative of the Chinese government in Hong Kong said on Saturday people trying to turn the city into a “pawn in geopolitics” were the “real enemies” and Beijing was the true defender of the city’s special status.
Luo Huining, director of China’s Hong Kong Liaison Office, told a forum that the financial hub, a former British colony handed over to China in 1997, remained one of the world’s most competitive economies, the South China Morning Post reported.
“Those trying to turn Hong Kong into a pawn in geopolitics, a tool in curbing China, as well as a bridgehead for infiltrating the mainland, are destroying the foundation of one country, two systems,” Luo said.
“They are the real enemies of Hong Kong’s prosperity and stability,” he said.
Luo said the ruling party in China was “the creator, leader, implementer and defender of one country, two systems”.
In an earlier development,
Chinese officials called on the UK government to “abandon colonial nostalgia” and cease meddling in Hong Kong’s internal affairs following London’s allegations over Beijing’s alleged use of national security law to stifle dissent and suppress alternative political viewpoints in the city.
The UK government submitted a six-monthly report on Hong Kong to parliament on Friday, accusing China of breaking its legal responsibilities under the 1984 Sino-British ‘Joint Declaration’.
At a press conference on Friday, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Wang Wenbin hit back at the UK government, stressing that the report had “distorted the truth”.
“Since the introduction of the national security law about a year ago, Hong Kong has restored order and stability, and returned to the right track”, Webin said adding that “international capital has also continued to flow into Hong Kong”.
He stressed that by the full support of central government, Hong Kong will surely “maintain its long-term stability and prosperity.”
Webin’s comments followed a strongly-worded statement of the spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry office in Hong Kong earlier on Friday.
Denouncing the report, the official called on the UK government to “face up to the trend of the times, abandon colonial nostalgia, immediately change course, and stop interfering in Hong Kong affairs and China’s internal affairs as a whole”.
The spokesman went on to say that London has turned “a blind eye to the dark past of its colonial rule in Hong Kong”, adding that it had no right to speak about the Hong Kong affairs following the 1997 handover.