HK protests ‘not peaceful but violent’

CHINA’S foreign minister yesterday denounced months of unrest in Hong Kong as “violence pure and simple,” accusing foreign forces and the international media of fuelling the political crisis.

The comments were the most direct condemnation from a top Chinese official of the protests that erupted five months ago.

“What is happening in Hong Kong today are in no way peaceful protests,” Wang Yi said during a trip to Paris on Monday.

“It’s violence pure and simple. These are unacceptable acts in any country,” he added, accusing the protesters of attacking police, members of the public and paralyzing transport.

Hong Kong has been riven by increasingly violent protests for the past 20 weeks.

The radical protesters have thrown Molotov cocktails and bricks at police, as well as vandalized businesses and public transport facilities.

“There are foreign forces which are encouraging this sort of violence in the streets with the aim of destabilizing Hong Kong, sowing chaos... to wipe out the historic progress made since the one-country-two-systems policy was applied,” said Wang.

“Such action will never succeed,” he added, insisting that the Hong Kong government would be able to re-establish “social order and respect for the rule of law.”

With “support from Beijing, Hong Kong will continue to apply the onecountry-two-systems formula,” Wang stressed.

Wang also took aim at foreign media, complaining that some of them “call this violence democratic and peaceful, in total disregard to reality.”

These media outlets “do not hesitate to describe the actions of the police as violence. If such allegations can be perceived as reality, how can we imagine that there is still justice in this world?”

(AFP)