Stop leaking WhatsApp messages, Beijing’s top official in Hong Kong tells whistle-blower

Pro-establishment lawmakers are under pressure to salvage their shattered unity after Beijing's top representative in Hong Kong called on the culprit who leaked WhatsApp messages to stop the exposés, which have ruined trust in the camp.

Liberal Party chairman Felix Chung Kwok-pan, one of the 40 Beijing-loyalists who met liaison office director Zhang Xiaoming at a "tea gathering" on Thursday, said those present agreed to stop trying to trace the whistle-blower who betrayed chat messages circulated among the camp during last week's historic electoral reform vote.

"When we met Zhang, we felt we should condemn the person who leaked the messages," Chung said yesterday. "Zhang said the leak had ruined mutual trust in the WhatsApp group and hurt friends. He urged the leaker to stop. … The consensus was not to hunt for the guy any more."

The office director was meeting Chung and the other Beijing loyalists for the first time since they bungled the legislative vote.

But the expected focus of the gathering on their blunder was overshadowed just hours earlier when messages from their WhatsApp group appeared in the Chinese-language Oriental Daily News and were authenticated by Legislative Council president Jasper Tsang Yok-sing.