Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Agence France-Presse — China tells US to back off: Hong Kong democracy protests are ‘internal affairs’

The United States and China openly clashed Wednesday over the pro-democracy protests sweeping Hong Kong, with Beijing angrily warning Washington to back off and saying it would not tolerate “illegal acts.” 
“The Chinese government has very firmly and clearly stated its position. Hong Kong affairs are China’s internal affairs,” Foreign Minister Wang Yi told US Secretary of State John Kerry, who was standing next to him, just before they went into talks at the State Department. 
“All countries should respect China’s sovereignty and this is a basic principle of governing international relations,” Wang said sternly.

“I believe for any country, for any society, no one would allow those illegal acts that violate public order. That’s the situation in the United States and that’s the same situation in Hong Kong.”
Double standard? The US pretty well tarnished its moral superiority with respect to civil liberties and human rights and diminished its soft power. It looks, sounds and feels just hypocritical now.
Amid a tense standoff on the streets of Hong Kong, a Chinese territory, Kerry renewed US calls for restraint by the city’s police.
Where we these champions of democracy during the suppression of Occupy protests in the US? Oh, they were coordinated by the Department of Homeland Security. (Wow, that sounds eerie. Couldn't they have come up with a more innocuous name?)
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki reaffirmed the US position. 
“It’s clear that we want the people of Hong Kong to have a broad choice of candidates,” she said. 
“We believe human rights and the freedom of expression is something that’s important not just in China but countries around the world,” she insisted, asked about Wang’s assertion that Hong Kong was an internal Chinese matter.
"Not just in China but countries around the world” What about the US?

What the US media doesn't report and actually misreports is that the agreement regarding Hong 'independence" was a two-systems, one country agreement that gave the Chinese government the right to administer Hong Kong's elections. While the US might have wished for an agreement more to its liking, China is in its rights according to the agreement. The US is trying to foment change in a sovereign country, something that it doesn't brook regarding itself. Why is that not hypocritical?

And as far as I can tell, the HK protestors are being treated less harshly that Occupy in many US cities including NYC and certainly Oakland. Looks like they are being treated about the same as the anti-war protests in DC in the Seventies under Nixon, although we were "just" tear gassed. They didn't have pepper spray then. I'm reasonably sure they would have used it if they did.

The Raw Story
China tells US to back off: Hong Kong democracy protests are ‘internal affairs’
Agence France-Presse

No comments: