[In a stunning rebuke to Beijing, Hong Kong residents gave an overwhelming majority to pro-democracy candidates running in local elections held Sunday. Voters handed control of 17 of the territory’s 18 councils to representatives who oppose China’s increasing influence, giving the pro-democracy camp greater say in the choice of Hong Kong’s next leader.]
By Anna
Fifield
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Wang
Zhimin, director of the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government
in
the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, holds a press conference
in
Hong Kong in July. (Wang Shen/Xinhua News Agency/Getty Images)
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BEIJING
— China’s Communist Party
admonished the Reuters news agency Tuesday over what the party called a “false
report” about a move to replace the head of the government’s Hong Kong liaison
office for failing to foresee the resounding defeat of the pro-Beijing
establishment in local elections last weekend.
Reuters reported Tuesday that the Chinese
leadership had set up a crisis command center in a luxury villa on the
outskirts of Shenzhen, on the mainland side of the border with Hong Kong, to
deal with the long-running political unrest in the semiautonomous financial
hub.
The report said Beijing was considering
replacing its most senior official stationed in Hong Kong, liaison office
Director Wang Zhimin, because it was dissatisfied with his handling of the
crisis.
In a stunning rebuke to Beijing, Hong Kong
residents gave an overwhelming majority to pro-democracy candidates running in
local elections held Sunday. Voters handed control of 17 of the territory’s 18
councils to representatives who oppose China’s increasing influence, giving the
pro-democracy camp greater say in the choice of Hong Kong’s next leader.
The Foreign Ministry’s office in Hong Kong
said Tuesday that it had lodged “solemn representations” with Reuters about the
“false report.” It said it had urged the agency “to uphold a true, professional
and responsible attitude, and immediately stop spreading false information.”
[In Hong Kong elections, big defeat for
elites pressures Beijing to rethink approach]
The ministry has insisted throughout the six
months of protests in Hong Kong that the unrest is an internal domestic matter
and that China will never waver from the “one country, two systems” formula
under which Britain returned Hong Kong to China in 1997.
Under that framework, Hong Kong is supposed
to enjoy a degree of autonomy and relative political freedom until 2047, but
its residents are bristling at Beijing’s increasingly muscular control over the
territory. Tensions burst into the open in June, when the Beijing-backed Hong
Kong government moved to implement a law that would have allowed Hong Kongers
to be extradited to the mainland.
Hong Kong has a much stronger and more
transparent rule of law than the mainland, and many residents feared that the
proposal, which has since been scrapped, could be used to target Beijing’s
critics.
The Reuters report, which cited Chinese
officials briefed on the discussions, said that Chinese leader Xi Jinping and
other top officials have been receiving daily written briefings from the villa,
named Bauhinia after the flower emblem of Hong Kong, bypassing the liaison
office in Hong Kong.
Embattled Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie
Lam had attended meetings there, according to the report, which could not be
independently verified.
[Xi must be dismayed: Chinese leader fighting
fires on all fronts]
China’s leaders appear increasingly vexed
about how to deal with the unrest in Hong Kong, analysts say, as a months-long
crackdown marked by thousands of arrests has only hardened public opinion
against Beijing. Having repeatedly refused to offer concessions, Beijing finds
itself with few options.
“I don’t think they’re going to change their
strategy,” said Jeff Wasserstrom, a professor at the University of California
at Irvine and the author of an upcoming book on Hong Kong’s political crisis.
“I don’t see any reason to think they are going to make any major concessions.”
Beijing has blamed the protests on outside
forces, led by the United States, eager to foment unrest and undermine the
Communist Party. It apparently sees evidence of that in the Hong Kong Human
Rights and Democracy Act just passed by Congress, which is intended to safeguard
political freedoms in Hong Kong and pave the way for sanctions against those
who undermine those rights.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang
summoned Ambassador Terry Branstad on Monday to “lodge stern representations
and strong protest” against the passage of the act.
China urged the United States to “correct its
mistake immediately” and “stop meddling in Hong Kong affairs and China’s other
internal affairs,” Zheng told Branstad, the official Xinhua News Agency
reported.
On Tuesday, at her first news conference
since the election, Hong Kong leader Lam declined to offer any concessions to
protesters, who are calling for an independent probe into police brutality,
genuine universal suffrage and other measures. She said Beijing did not blame her
for voters’ rejection of pro-Beijing parties and endorsement of the democracy
movement.
The central government’s liaison office in
Hong Kong serves to propagate Beijing’s influence in the city, report back on
political developments and forge patronage networks with business groups and
influential local figures. Protesters in Hong Kong pelted the office with eggs
and paint over the summer and defaced the Chinese emblem.
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