China’s central government today condemned the ransacking of Hong Kong’s legislature and said it backed the city authorities to investigate the “criminal responsibility of violent offenders.”
The semi-autonomous financial hub has been thrown into crisis by weeks of massive demonstrations over a bill that would allow extraditions to the Chinese mainland.
But yesterday — the 22nd anniversary of the city’s handover to China — anger spilled over as groups of mostly young, hard-line protesters, broke into the Legislative Council where they hung Hong Kong’s colonial-era flag and left anti-Beijing graffiti.
“These serious illegal actions trample on the rule of law in Hong Kong, undermine Hong Kong’s social order, and harm the fundamental interests of Hong Kong,” the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council, China’s cabinet, said in a statement by an unnamed spokesperson.
“It is a blatant challenge to the ‘one country, two systems’ bottom line. We express our vehement condemnation against this,” the spokesperson said.
The statement said Beijing strongly supports Hong Kong’s government and the police.
The central government “also supports the relevant agencies of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to investigate the criminal responsibility of violent offenders in accordance with the law, to restore normal social order as soon as possible, to protect the personal and property safety of the citizens, and to safeguard Hong Kong’s prosperity and stability,” it said.
Under the terms of the 1997 handover from colonial power Britain to China — which the city’s political elites feted earlier in the day — Hong Kong is to be governed under its own laws with special rights, including freedom of speech and an independent judiciary, until 2047.
