Chinese government rebukes US over comments on Hong Kong removal of legislators-elect
Beijing responds to published comments by Joshua Wong during activist’s visit to Washington
The Chinese Foreign Ministry’s representative in Hong Kong has hit back at comments by the United States government on the disqualification of two pro-independence lawmakers in the city, saying foreign governments must not interfere in the country’s internal affairs.
The rebuke came as the ministry criticised one of the city’s most recognised pro-democracy activists, Joshua Wong Chi-fung, for penning an opinion piece with a fellow activist in the Wall Street Journal just days earlier calling on Hongkongers to fight for the right to self-determination.
Responding on Tuesday to the High Court’s disqualification of two lawmakers-elect who used derogatory language to insult China during their oath-taking, State Department’s press office director Elizabeth Trudeau said: “We believe that the Chinese and the Hong Kong governments and all elected politicians in Hong Kong should refrain from any actions that fuel concern or undermine confidence in the ‘one country, two systems’ principle.
“The United States strongly supports and values Hong Kong’s Legislative Council and independent judiciary, two institutions that play a critically important role in promoting and protecting the special administrative region’s high degree of autonomy.”
A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry commissioner’s office in Hong Kong stressed that “Hong Kong affairs are purely China’s internal affairs”.