Advertisement
Advertisement
Taiwan
Get more with myNEWS
A personalised news feed of stories that matter to you
Learn more
Pro-independence Hong Kong lawmakers Baggio Leung, left, and Yau Wai-ching spoke to a forum in Taipei. Photo: AFP

Beijing blasts Taipei over ‘meddling in Hong Kong affairs’

Taiwan

Beijing has criticised Taiwan for intervening in Hong Kong’s affairs while warning the island’s separatists that they would never divide the territory from China even if they teamed with up with the city’s localist activists.

The comments came after two localist Hong Kong lawmakers, Young­spiration’s Sixtus “Baggio” Leung Chung-hang and Yau Wai-ching, whose swearing-in oaths for the Legislative Council were invalidated earlier this month, called for the territory to “insulate” itself from the mainland during a seminar in Taipei on Hong Kong’s localist movement.

Taiwanese officials also said last week that they would closely watch the oath-taking row.

An Fengshan, spokesman for the State Council’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said Beijing was “highly concerned” about Taiwan intervening in Hong Kong’s affairs.

“We resolutely oppose Taiwan authorities intervening in Hong Kong’s implementation of ‘one country, two systems’,” An said.

He said collusion between Taiwan and Hong Kong independence advocates in their attempts to divide the country’s unity would never succeed, and that they would be opposed by compatriots across the Taiwan Strait as well as of Hong Kong.

Chiu Chui-cheng, a deputy chief of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, was quoted by the United Daily News as saying on Thursday that both Leung and Yau were popularly elected with popular mandates, and called on Beijing and Hong Kong to respect public opinion and fully implement “one country, two systems”.

Chiu said the MAC would follow closely Leung and Yau’s oath-taking row. The Hong Kong government responded by telling Taiwan to stay out its affairs.

The MAC said later it did not intend to intervene in Hong Kong’s affairs, but would observe its implementation of “one country, two systems” as it was “a common concern to international society, including Taiwan”.

Post