HONG KONG: Hong Kong independence activist Andy Chan attacked China as an empire trying to “annex” and “destroy” the city in a no-holds barred…
HONG KONG: Hong Kong independence activist Andy Chan attacked China as an empire trying to “annex” and “destroy” the city in a no-holds barred speech on Tuesday (Aug 14) at the city’s press club which Beijing wanted cancelled.
Rival protesters gathered outside the venue and a small group of pro-independence activists clashed with police, saying they had been given no space for their rally, while dozens of pro-Beijing supporters chanted slogans including “gas the spies!”
Chan described Beijing as semi-autonomous Hong Kong’s “colonial master” in his speech to a packed audience at the city’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club.
“We are a nation that is quickly being annexed and destroyed by China,” he said, in a lunch address entitled “Hong Kong Nationalism: A Politically Incorrect Guide to Hong Kong under Chinese Rule”.
The Hong Kong office of China’s foreign ministry, which had requested the club pull the talk, quickly hit back.
“If the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents’ Club wouldn’t invite racists, anti-semites, terrorists and Nazis to give speeches, why would the HKFCC, in Chinese territory, openly invite a leader of ‘Hong Kong independence’ to give speeches on ‘Hong Kong independence’?” it said in a statement.
The ministry accused the FCC of taking a stance by providing a platform for the independence movement and “touching the most sensitive nerves of 1.4 billion Chinese including the seven million Hong Kong comrades”.
The Hong Kong government said that while it backed freedom of speech and the press, allowing Chan to speak contravened the city’s mini-constitution and was “totally inappropriate and unacceptable”.
