Hong Kong verges on a ‘police state’

US SENATOR: ‘THE SITUATION HERE IS URGENT’

China President Xi Jinping warns separatists ‘will perish, with bodies smashed’.

Strife-torn Hong Kong is sliding towards becoming a police state, US senator Josh Hawley warned yesterday, as the financial hub braces for a rally calling on Washington to punish China over sliding freedoms.

Hong Kong was battered by another weekend of unrest on Sunday as hardcore pro-democracy protesters and police fought running battles across the city.

Protests pushing for greater democratic freedoms and police accountability have raged for the past 19 weeks and there is little end in sight as Beijing and local leaders refuse concessions.

A large crowd was expected to gather in the city’s commercial district last night calling for US politicians to pass a Bill that could dramatically alter Washington’s relationship with the trading hub.

The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which could be voted on by the House of Representatives as early as this week, would require annual reviews of the territory’s special trading status – and potentially sanction some Chinese officials.

Among the Bill’s sponsors is Hawley, a Republican senator for Missouri. He made a quick two-day trip to Hong Kong and watched the protests on Sunday night in the crowded district of Mongkok, later meeting with prominent democracy activist Joshua Wong. “The situation here is urgent,” he said yesterday.

Asked what his message would be on returning to Washington he replied: “That Hong Kong is in danger of sliding towards a police state and that representative government in Hong Kong is at risk, and that the one country, two systems model is at risk.”

One country, two systems is the deal China agreed to ahead of the 1997 handover by Britain in which it agreed to allow Hong Kong to keep its unique freedoms such as free speech and an independent judiciary for 50 years.

Democracy activists inside Hong Kong have long accused Beijing of chipping away at those freedoms, a gripe that has fuelled years of growing resentment which exploded this summer. China has accused “external forces” of fuelling unrest in the semi-autonomous city.

Hawley’s remarks came after Chinese President Xi Jinping issued his most dire warning yet amid the anti-Beijing unrest in Hong Kong.

“Anyone who attempts to split any region from China will perish, with their bodies smashed and bones ground to powder,” he said. “Any external forces that support the splitting of China can only be regarded as delusional by the Chinese people.”

Hawley described Xi’s comments as “violent rhetoric” that illustrated why he believed the US and its European allies needed to take a stronger line at Beijing’s growing regional threat. – AFP