US warns China over HK press freedom

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The US on Sunday warned China against interfering with American journalists working in Hong Kong, in an escalating row between the two countries over press freedom and other issues.

The two sides have expelled each other’s reporters in tit-for-tat moves over recent months as they trade barbs over the coronavirus pandemic and US President Donald Trump threatens to impose fresh trade tariffs.

“It has recently come to my attention that the Chinese government has threatened to interfere with the work of American journalists in Hong Kong,” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement.

“These journalists are members of a free press, not propaganda cadres.”

Pompeo did not explicitly criticize China, nor did he give specific examples of what he was referring to, but the statement is the latest US response after Beijing expelled more than a dozen American reporters.

“Any decision impinging on Hong Kong’s autonomy and freedoms as guaranteed under the Sino-British Joint Declaration and the Basic Law would inevitably impact our assessment of One Country, Two Systems and the status of the territory,” Pompeo said.

“One Country, Two Systems” is the arrangement under which Hong Kong was handed back to China from Britain in 1997, designed to guarantee rights and freedoms in the semi-autonomous city.

In February, China kicked out three journalists from The Wall

Street Journal after the newspaper ran an opinion piece on the coronavirus crisis with a headline that Beijing deemed racist.

AFP Lawmakers supporting Beijing clashed yesterday with pro-democracy legislators during the election of committee officials at the Legislative Council in Hong Kong.