China warns US: ‘Hong Kong belongs to China’

The senior diplomat avoided acknowledging the attacks carried out Sunday by gangs of men in white shirts, who descended on a train station armed with batons and beat Hong Kong residents suspected of returning from another protest against Beijing’s influence over the semi-autonomous city. The attacks came on the heels of reports that Chinese Communist officials were trying to come up with a plan to control the ongoing protests without sending in the People’s Liberation Army.

“The Chinese government has basically empowered these street gangs, these thugs, associated with organized crime to viciously attack these protesters,” Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican who sits on the Foreign Relations Committee and the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, said Tuesday. “It gives you great insight into the type of government that we are dealing with in the mainland of China, the Communist Party of China.”

Millions of Hong Kong residents have taken to the streets over the last two months, an outpouring of grievances triggered by a Beijing-backed effort to pass an extradition bill that would allow for fugitives to be sent from Hong Kong to mainland China. Pro-democracy activists warn that the legislation would authorize “legalized kidnapping,” because Chinese officials would be allowed to take custody of a Hong Kong resident merely by producing a sworn statement that accused the individual of a crime.

“Reports of organized violence by criminal gangs against private citizens, and attacks on journalists trying to do their jobs, are particularly disturbing,” a State Department representative told the Washington Examiner. “The continued erosion of Hong Kong’s autonomy puts at risk its long-established special status in international affairs.”

Chinese officials have dismissed questions about the white-shirted men. “I’d like to reiterate that the behaviors of some radical protesters have crossed the bottom line of the ‘one country, two systems’ principle,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Monday. “As to the so-called ‘attack’ in Hong Kong as you mentioned, our attitude is very clear. We oppose all illegal, violent behaviors and the central government always supports the Hong Kong police in handling relevant situation in accordance with law. This position is consistent.”

The attacks are widely perceived as the latest example of China using pro-Beijing triads to crack down on Hong Kong dissidents. Local police failed to respond to the attack until after the beatings had stopped, and no one was arrested in connection to the attacks.

“It’s unbelievable,” Lam Cheuk-ting, a pro-democracy lawmaker who received 18 stitches after being hit in the face during the attack, said Monday. “The behavior of the police force is really disgusting and shameless.”

A pro-Beijing lawmaker, on the other hand, defended the white-shirted men as “defending their home and people” and called for the attacks to be forgiven. “The sinners can be pardoned,” Hong Kong lawmaker Junius Ho Kwan-yiu said Monday.

President Trump credited Chinese President Xi Jinping with acting “very responsibly” towards the Hong Kong protesters. “Those are big protests,” he said Monday. “I hope that President Xi will do the right thing. But it has been going on a long time. There’s no question about it.”

Even that acknowledgment of the protesters drew an implicit rebuke from Beijing. “Speaking of the number of people, I’d like to remind you of a fact,” Hua said. “There are over 1.4 billion people in China. All of us, including those in Hong Kong, hope to safeguard Hong Kong’s security, stability and prosperity, and we have the resolve and capability to do so.”