China summons US envoy over Hong Kong rights bill
BEIJING (AFP) - China has summoned the US ambassador to demand that United States scrap legislation backing Hong Kong's prodemocracy movement, or ''bear all the consequences'', the foreign ministry said Tuesday.
The Hong Kong bill awaiting President Donald Trump's signature supports human rights and democracy in the city, while threatening to revoke the territory's special economic status.
A separate measure bans the sale of tear gas, rubber bullets and other equipment used by the security forces to suppress pro-democracy protests.
Vice foreign minister Zheng Zeguang summoned US ambassador Terry Branstad on Monday to voice a ''strong protest'' over the bill, the ministry said in a statement.
The legislation ''brazenly interferes in China's internal affairs'' and ''indulges and supports the violent criminal behaviour by 'anti-China disrupting Hong Kong' forces,'' the ministry said.
Trump has not indicated whether he will sign the legislation into law, saying last week that while he stood with Hong Kong, he also stood with his ''friend'', President Xi Jinping.
The foreign ministry urged the US to ''immediately correct its mistakes, prevent the abovementioned Hong Kong-related bill from becoming law, and stop any words and deeds that interfere in Hong Kong affairs and China's internal affairs.''
''Otherwise, the US side must bear all the consequences,'' it said.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong's deeply unpopular leader Carrie Lam acknowledged Tuesday that public dissatisfaction with her government fuelled a landslide win by pro-democracy candidates in local elections, but offered no new concessions to resolve months of violent protests.
In China, state media sought to downplay and discredit the weekend ballot that delivered a stinging rebuke to the financial hub's proBeijing establishment in what was widely seen as a referendum on Lam's handling of the unrest.
The city's chief executive pledged to ''improve governance'' in the wake of the district council elections, which she acknowledged revealed concern over ''deficiencies in the government, including unhappiness with the time taken to deal with the current unstable environment.''
In a rout that stunned the semiautonomous territory, candidates campaigning against greater control by China seized an overwhelming majority of 452 elected seats in the city's 18 district councils, bodies that have historically been firmly in the grip of a Beijingaligned establishment.
The result -- the first vote held since protests engulfed the city -was a humiliating rebuke to Beijing and Lam, who has dismissed calls for political reform and repeatedly suggested that a silent majority supported her administration.
In the wake of the polls, prodemocracy politicians have stepped up calls for Lam to address the movement's key demands -- such as direct popular elections for the city's leadership and legislature, and a probe into alleged police brutality against demonstrators.
But in Tuesday's weekly press briefing, she sidestepped those calls, denouncing the street violence and repeating an earlier pledge to open a dialogue on the unrest, a proposal that opponents have dismissed as too little, too late.