Beijing on Tuesday voiced “strong dissatisfaction” with a joint statement issued by the G7 leaders, who backed Hong Kong’s autonomy and called for calm after months of civil unrest.
G7 leaders meeting in France on Monday reaffirmed Hong Kong’s autonomy as laid out in a 1984 agreement between Britain and China, and called for calm in the city.
“The G7 reaffirms the existence and the importance of the 1984 Sino-British agreement on Hong Kong and calls for avoiding violence,” the countries’ joint statement read.
But Beijing has accused foreign governments of interfering over Hong Kong, and even that relatively anodyne statement was enough to prompt Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang to accuse the G7 of “meddling” and “harboring evil intentions.”
“We express our strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition to the statement made by the leaders of the G7 Summit on Hong Kong affairs,” Geng said at a press briefing in Beijing.
“We have repeatedly stressed that Hong Kong’s affairs are purely China’s internal affairs and that no foreign government, organisation or individual has the right to intervene.”
Hong Kong has been wracked by nearly three months of protests over an attempt by its Beijing-backed government to pass an extradition bill, which prompted fears that dissidents and business people alike could be left at the mercy of the mainland’s notoriously politicized courts.
Though the bill was suspended, the protests has since morphed into a wider call for greater democratic freedoms.
In the G7 statement, the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States called for calm.
Beijing has previously accused former colonial power Britain of interfering in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory, which was handed over to China in 1997, and even detained a staffer at the British consulate for over two weeks while he was on a day-trip to the mainland.
“The rule of law, social order, economic livelihood, and international image of Hong Kong has been severely affected,” Geng said.
“No one cares more about the prosperity and stability of Hong Kong than the Chinese people, including the people of Hong Kong.”
So far Beijing has not intervened over unrest in the semi-autonomous city, despite ramping up the rhetoric against demonstrators and conducting troop movements and drills near the border in an apparent effort to intimidate.
