In a lengthy statement, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has slammed Hong Kong’s Foreign Correspondents Club for hosting a speech by the leader of a pro-independence political party, demanding the club “repent” and “correct its wrong doing.”
At the same time, the club’s webpage was allegedly infected with malware following yesterday’s controversial lunchtime talk by Andy Chan, convenor of the Hong Kong National Party, which faces an unprecedented government ban for advocating separatism.
Coincidence? Feels like a stretch.
https://www.facebook.com/fcchk.org/photos/a.418113051623141.1073741826.290499501051164/1501746573259778/?type=3&theater
Amid protests by a few dozen pro-Beijing demonstrators and a handful of counter protesters, the talk went ahead yesterday despite opposition by Hong Kong and central government authorities, which pushed to have the event cancelled.
The club also revealed on its Facebook that, prior to Chan’s speech, there had been a “hoax call” to the fire department from outside the building announcing there was a fire or a fire alarm activation.
The talk — in which a defiant Chan compared China to “colonizers” who were “destroying” Hong Kong — clearly riled mainland officials, whose ire at Hong Kong’s independence movement has helped propel the fringe group back into the spotlight.
In an almost 1,000-word statement, the Office of the Commissioner of China’s Foreign Affairs Ministry in Hong Kong expressed its “indignation” and accused the FCC of “openly disrupting the rule of law in Hong Kong” and “abusing the freedom of the press and expression.”
It said the Hong Kong National Party — which reportedly boasts no more than a few dozen members — posed a “grave threat” to national security, warned Hong Kong’s protection of free speech had “limitations,” and compared allowing Chan to speak with giving a platform to Nazis.
“No country would allow any foreign institution to invite separatist forces to advocate separation or incite violent resistance on its soil,” it said.
“If it offers no place for racist, anti-Semitist [sic], terrorist or Nazist [sic], then why is the FCC openly inviting head of a separatist group to make a “Hong Kong independence” speech on the Chinese territory?”
The FCC has repeatedly reiterated it stands for freedom of the press and freedom of speech and that it neither endorses nor opposes the views of its various speakers and panelists.
The statement rejected this position, calling hosting the talk “an act of hypocrisy and self-deception” and saying it had “greatly offended the Chinese people.”
“Any words and deeds attempting to separate Hong Kong from the rest of China will be punished by law,” it wrote.
“Any individual or organization’s move to embolden Hong Kong separatists will meet the firm opposition of the Chinese people.”
It should be noted that the odds of the “Chinese people” being aware of this are pretty much nil thanks to what is commonly known as the Great Firewall.
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