U.S. slams China after ‘thuggish’ info leak
DIPLOMAT TARGETED
BEIJING • After weeks of escalating warnings alleging a covert U.S. role behind the protests in Hong Kong, the tone in Communist Partybacked media outlets is turning darkly acrimonious, with publications attacking a U.S. diplomat in Hong Kong and releasing her personal information.
The pro-Beijing newspaper Ta Kung Pao on Thursday published a photo of opposition activists meeting in a hotel with Julie Eadeh, a political section chief in the U.S. Consulate in Hong Kong, along with details about her career and the names of her husband and teen children.
The report, which was recirculated by Chinese state media, emerged as Beijing doubled down on a familiar strategy of framing the nineweek-long protests as a U.S. intelligence plot to spark a “colour revolution” to destabilize China.
The publication drew a furious response from the U.S. State Department, which accused China of “thuggish” behaviour. U.S. envoys around the world often meet with opposition groups, occasionally drawing rebukes from governments.
“I don’t think leaking an American diplomat’s private information, pictures, names of their children — I don’t think that is a formal protest. That is what a thuggish regime would do,” State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus told reporters in Washington Thursday. “American diplomats meet with formal government officials; we meet with opposition protesters, not just in Hong Kong or China. This literally happens in every single country.”
The unusual pinpoint attack on the Hong Kong diplomat underscores China’s growing frustration over the protests and their anti-Beijing message.
On Friday, hundreds of protesters flooded into Hong Kong’s airport to hold another sit-in and vowed to continue through the weekend.
China’s aviation overseer ordered the flagship carrier Cathay Pacific Airways to suspend any personnel who take part or support the protests. The territory’s embattled leader, Carrie Lam, made a fresh appeal to the public by citing the economic toll of the disturbances.
Lam said she had met with a broad section of society and believed that a “violent minority” of protesters “had no stake in society.”
Dominic Raab, the British Foreign Secretary, called Lam Friday and reiterated Britain’s support for the territory’s high degree of autonomy under the “one country, two systems” principle established in 1997.
Canada on Friday issued a travel advisory urging Canadians travelling to Hong Kong to exercise “a high degree of caution” because of the escalating protests.