China told Britain to keep its hands off Hong Kong on Wednesday while London called for Beijing to honor the agreements made when the city was handed over in 1997, escalating a diplomatic spat over the former British colony.
GROWING WAR BETWEEN TWO COUNTRIES
Beijing denounced British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt as “shameless” and said it had made a diplomatic complaint to London after he warned of consequences if China neglected its commitments to guarantee basic freedoms.
“In the minds of some people, they regard Hong Kong as still under British rule. They forget … that Hong Kong has now returned to the embrace of the Motherland,” China’s ambassador to London, Liu Xiaoming, said. “I tell them: hands off Hong Kong and show respect. This colonial mindset is still haunting the minds of some officials or politicians,” Liu told reporters.
The growing war of words between China and Britain follows mass protests in Hong Kong against a now suspended bill that would allow extradition to mainland China.
Hundreds of protesters in the former British colony besieged and broke into the legislature on Monday after a demonstration marking the anniversary of return to Chinese rule.
China called the violence an “undisguised challenge” to the “one country, two systems” model under which Hong Kong has been ruled for 22 years.