Chinese President Xi Jinping raised the specter of a violent crackdown on protesters against the Communist government, as Beijing rebuffs international condemnation for human rights abuses.
“Anyone attempting to split China in any part of the country will end in crushed bodies and shattered bones,” Xi said Sunday, per state-run media.
That warning was issued from Nepal, where thousands of Tibetan Buddhists have taken refuge from Chinese Communist rule. But the blanket threat is likely a message to the protesters in Hong Kong and Western-allied leaders of Taiwan, whom Chinese officials regard as “separatists” and advocates of “secessionism” from the mainland government.
“And any external forces backing such attempts at dividing China will be deemed by the Chinese people as pipe-dreaming,” Xi also said.
Hong Kong has been rocked by protests for months, as dissidents were outraged by the Beijing-backed local government’s attempt to pass an extradition bill that would allow mainland Chinese authorities to take custody of Hong Kong residents based on flimsy evidence. The proposed bill tapped into deeper suspicions that China is trying to undermine the autonomy that was promised to Hong Kong when the United Kingdom relinquished sovereignty over the former colony in 1997.
“We’ve seen over two million people come to the streets standing up for freedom, standing up for democracy, and standing up against the oppression of the Chinese Communist regime,” Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said Sunday while traveling in Hong Kong. “I think it is very much in the United States’ interests to support the people of Hong Kong. I’m here, I’m dressed in all black standing in solidarity with the protesters.”
Chinese authorities have accused the U.S. of orchestrating the protests, but local activists have been pleading for American support for months.
“How does it benefit your relationship with China when the only Chinese city, which is free, loses its freedoms?” Martin Lee, a former lawmaker and the founder of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party, said in May. “And if we can preserve all these things, which is the basic principle behind ‘one country, two systems,’ if we can keep all that, the chances are that one day you will be dealing with a democratically elected China. That must be in your long-term interests.”
The protests have taken place at an inconvenient time for Xi, as he hoped to convince Taiwan — the last bastion of the government overthrown during the Communist Revolution in 1949 — to accept Beijing’s claims to sovereignty in a relationship modeled on the “one country, two systems” agreement governing Hong Kong. Taiwanese leaders have cited China’s threats to use force against Hong Kong to denounce the mainland government.
“The PLA is supposed to protect the people, not pound them into submission,” Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs tweeted in August, using the acronym for the Chinese military. “It’s time for authoritarian China to back off!”
