China Tells UK to Stop ‘Gesticulating’ About Hong Kong
BEIJING (Dispatches) -- Britain no longer has any responsibility for Hong Kong and needs to stop "gesticulating” about its former colony, China’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday.
Protesters stormed Hong Kong's parliament building late Monday as the territory marked its China handover anniversary, smashing through reinforced windows and steel shutters in unprecedented scenes that plunge the city further into crisis.
Under the blazing summer sky the young demonstrators made multiple attempts to smash into the building, using a metal cart as a battering ram and wielding steel poles to prize open gaps in the reinforced windows.
Riot police inside the building responded by squirting pepper spray at protesters, who unfurled umbrellas to shield themselves.
The latest unrest ramps up tensions in the financial hub which has been rocked by three weeks of demonstrations against a bill that would allow extraditions to the Chinese mainland.
China two years ago announced that it considered the joint declaration, which laid the blueprint over how the city would be ruled after its return to China, was a historical document that no longer had any practical significance.
Britain says the declaration remains in force and is a legally valid treaty to which it is committed to upholding, a point repeated by British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt on Sunday.
Ahead of the 22nd anniversary of the handover on Monday, Hunt also said that recent protests over the extradition bill made it even more important to reiterate that Britain’s commitment to the Sino-British Joint Declaration was unwavering.
Speaking in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said that Britain’s rights and obligations under the joint declaration had ended.
"Britain has no so-called responsibility for Hong Kong. Hong Kong matters are purely an internal affair for China. No foreign country has a right to interfere,” Geng told a daily news briefing.
"Recently Britain has continuously gesticulated about Hong Kong, flagrantly interfering. We are extremely dissatisfied with this and resolutely opposed,” he added.
"We urge Britain to know its place and stop interfering in any form in Hong Kong matters and do more for its prosperity and stability rather than the opposite.”
Protesters stormed Hong Kong's parliament building late Monday as the territory marked its China handover anniversary, smashing through reinforced windows and steel shutters in unprecedented scenes that plunge the city further into crisis.
Under the blazing summer sky the young demonstrators made multiple attempts to smash into the building, using a metal cart as a battering ram and wielding steel poles to prize open gaps in the reinforced windows.
Riot police inside the building responded by squirting pepper spray at protesters, who unfurled umbrellas to shield themselves.
The latest unrest ramps up tensions in the financial hub which has been rocked by three weeks of demonstrations against a bill that would allow extraditions to the Chinese mainland.
China two years ago announced that it considered the joint declaration, which laid the blueprint over how the city would be ruled after its return to China, was a historical document that no longer had any practical significance.
Britain says the declaration remains in force and is a legally valid treaty to which it is committed to upholding, a point repeated by British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt on Sunday.
Ahead of the 22nd anniversary of the handover on Monday, Hunt also said that recent protests over the extradition bill made it even more important to reiterate that Britain’s commitment to the Sino-British Joint Declaration was unwavering.
Speaking in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said that Britain’s rights and obligations under the joint declaration had ended.
"Britain has no so-called responsibility for Hong Kong. Hong Kong matters are purely an internal affair for China. No foreign country has a right to interfere,” Geng told a daily news briefing.
"Recently Britain has continuously gesticulated about Hong Kong, flagrantly interfering. We are extremely dissatisfied with this and resolutely opposed,” he added.
"We urge Britain to know its place and stop interfering in any form in Hong Kong matters and do more for its prosperity and stability rather than the opposite.”