German politicians blasted on China visit over Hong Kong unrest as Guo Yezhou tells delegation their people’s support ‘incited’ Legco invasion

A senior Chinese official has accused Germany of inciting the storming of Hong Kong’s Legislative Council, according to German magazine Der Spiegel.

The magazine reported that a delegation of parliamentarians from Germany’s Free Democratic Party (FDP) was given a frosty reception by Guo Yezhou, vice-minister of the international department of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee, during a meeting last week in Beijing.

Guo told the delegation, headed by FDP leader Christian Lindner, that “public sympathy” in Germany for protests in Hong Kong, and the granting of asylum for Hong Kong dissidents, had “incited the violent entry” into Hong Kong’s legislature. The delegation, and Berlin’s ambassador to China, rejected the claim, according to the report.

The magazine also reported that meetings between the delegation and high-level officials in Beijing were summarily cancelled by the Chinese, hours before they were due to take place. This was later confirmed by members of the delegation who told German newspaper Handelsblatt that two full days of appointments were cancelled.

Lindner and his team were in Beijing as part of a 12-day tour of Asia, which included a visit to Hong Kong before they travelled to mainland China. While in the city they met several unspecified “opposition representatives”, a move that had displeased their Chinese hosts, according to Der Spiegel.