Beijing blasts ‘distortion and defamation’ after US Consul Kurt Tong questions Hong Kong’s autonomy

Top US diplomat in Hong Kong says Beijing is ‘intimately’ involved in the city’s decision-making

Foreign Ministry Office tells Tong to stop interfering in internal affairs of Hong Kong and China

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‘I’m not confident that politics can be so neatly divorced from economics in how this city runs,’ US Consul General Kurt Tong said this week. Photo: Edward Wong

Published: 9:59pm, 1 Mar 2019Updated: 10:20am, 2 Mar 2019

Beijing’s foreign ministry office has complained of “distortion and defamation” by the United States’ top diplomat in Hong Kong after he warned that the central government’s deep involvement in the city’s decision-making could hurt the economy and business sentiment.

The Office of the Chinese Foreign Ministry Commissioner made a solemn representation to the US consulate on Friday to complain about a speech by Consul-General Kurt Tong in which he identified problems last year for the “one country, two systems” principle under which the city is governed.

In a speech on Wednesday, released on the consulate’s website on Friday, Tong said “certain recent events in Hong Kong have raised cautionary flags for some US observers, as they consider the sustainability of Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy going forward”.

The foreign ministry office issued a statement expressing “resolute opposition” to the “erroneous” remarks and urged Tong to stop interfering in the internal affairs of Hong Kong and China.

“The ‘one country, two systems’ has been successfully implemented in Hong Kong and the [city’s] government has taken a series of measures to safeguard the constitutional order,” it said.

“The situation of Hong Kong is steadily heading in the right direction after the past year. There is no room for distortion and defamation.”