China backs Hong Kong chief in unrest
BEIJING — China’s government put the onus for dealing with increasingly violent protests in Hong Kong squarely on the city’s leader, signaling Monday that it wants a political rather than a military solution to political unrest in the semiautonomous Chinese territory.
Beijing officials called for punishment of “radicals” involved in protests that have gripped Hong Kong in recent weeks. But they also acknowledged some causes of young people’s discontent, including the need for more economic opportunity and affordable housing.
“Hong Kong will surely overcome all difficulties and challenges on its way forward,” Yang Guang, a spokesman for Beijing’s Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office, said in a news conference, adding that the central government “firmly supports” Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam.
“The ship of ‘one country, two systems’ will surely sail far and steady, despite winds and storms,” Yang said, referring to the principle under which China agreed to give the former British colony a high degree of autonomy for 50 years after its return to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.
But signs of China’s influence over Hong Kong abound. The Hong Kong and Chinese flags flew at half-staff above government offices Monday in mourning for Li Peng, the former Chinese premier known as “the Butcher of Beijing” for his role in the bloody Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989.
It was the first time that the office, which answers to China’s State Council, or Cabinet, has called a news conference.
After eight consecutive weekends of protests in Hong Kong, the decision by Chinese officials to face the media sparked speculation that Beijing might remove Lam, who has not addressed the news media for a week.
While the protests were building on Sunday, she was at a graduation ceremony for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army summer camp at a barracks in Hong Kong.
She did not face the media on Monday either, as officials in Beijing spoke about the situation in Hong Kong. Instead, she gave the opening remarks at a women’s empowerment forum, speaking about her government’s efforts to create a conducive environment for women in the workforce without mentioning the political turmoil in the territory.
A spokesman for the Hong Kong government said it would not respond to “speculative comments” about Lam’s leadership.
Protests in Hong Kong, triggered by now-suspended plans to allow the territory to extradite suspects to the mainland for trial, have plunged the Asian financial hub into its worst political crisis in decades.
In clashes over the weekend, police fired tear gas and projectiles at thousands of protesters in a densely packed neighborhood close to the downtown area.
Protesters responded with bricks, set fire to carts that they pushed close to police lines, and shot at police with crossbows. Police arrested at least 49 people Sunday, in addition to 11 who were arrested during a separate demonstration on Saturday — the most detained in a single weekend since the start of the upheaval more than eight weeks ago.
More protests are planned for this week, including one organized by Hong Kong civil servants.
On Monday, China’s Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office denounced violence and reiterated its calls for Hong Kongers to adhere to the rule of law. Yang deflected a question about whether the central government was considering sending in the Chinese military to put down the demonstrations.
“There is clear provision, but I will not go into details. Just go and have a look [at the laws],” he said. “The most pressing task for the moment is to punish violence and maintain order.”
Some in Hong Kong said it was notable that it was Beijing officials, rather than Lam, doing the talking on Monday.
Lam “has almost disappeared before the camera and before the media in the past month, even though a lot of people expect her government should be more decisive in handling the chaos,” said Ivan Choy, a political scientist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Beijing’s remarks appeared designed to show that “the central government is keeping a close eye on the things happening in Hong Kong” and to send a firm message of support toward Lam and her administration, he said.
Instead, it served to further weaken her position, Choy said, by showing that Beijing has a “systematic will” when it comes to Hong Kong, while the territory’s own authorities have all but disappeared.
The Chinese military began drills in the waters to the north and west of Taiwan on Monday, exercises that were designed to send a “deterrent” message to both Taipei and Washington, said Wei Dongxu, a Beijing-based military analyst.
The drills are being conducted in two different areas at the same time, “which is a demonstration of the [People’s Liberation Army’s] strength, determination and capability to safeguard sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Wei told the Global Times, a nationalist tabloid that often reflects the foreign policy views of the Communist Party.
Beijing has been angered by the U.S.’s recent decisions to sell arms to Taiwan, which it views as a renegade breakaway province, and by a boost in polls that Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen is enjoying as Taiwanese see the erosion of freedoms in Hong Kong.
Meanwhile, the Communist Party increasingly sees the trade war with the United States as part of a broader American effort to keep China down.
In Monday’s news conference, Yang accused outside forces of “stoking trouble” in Hong Kong. “This is an attempt to contain China’s development. Such an attempt will lead nowhere,” he said.
American trade negotiators led by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin are scheduled to meet with their Chinese counterparts in Shanghai today.