The U.S. Pacific Fleet confirmed on Wednesday that China had blocked a previously scheduled visit for two U.S. Navy ships to Hong Kong, adding that it hopes Beijing will soon reconsider and continue allowing the American military to have ties to the capitalist port city.
“I have ZERO doubt that if President Xi wants to quickly and humanely solve the Hong Kong problem, he can do it,” Trump wrote. “Personal meeting?”
Similarities between the protest movements in Hong Kong and Moscow have not gone unnoticed by the authoritarian rulers of China and Russia. Russia’s state-run Tass news service on Wednesday quoted the new Chinese ambassador calling for the two countries to “cultivate our relations at a higher level” and “open a new page” in their friendship.
Fresh from a successful campaign to force several foreign fashion designers to pull shirts off the market, Chinese Internet users trained their sights on Starbucks this week, demanding the American coffee company fire a Hong Kong barista accused of writing pro-democracy messages on cups.
Hong Kong International Airports administrative body has secured a court injunction that prevents anyone from disrupting flights, local media reported Wednesday, in response to pro-democracy protesters grounding all flights out of the airport for two days.
Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protesters circulated several letters and messages Wednesday apologizing to travelers stranded in the city’s airport the last two days, grounded by protesters blocking departure gates to bring attention to China’s attempts to impose communist law on the region.
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) announced Tuesday he will seek to pass a law suspending U.S. sales of anti-riot gear to Hong Kong police, citing its excessive use against peaceful pro-democracy protesters.
Chaos erupted in Hong Kong International Airport late Tuesday as riot police barrelled through the masses of hundreds of protesters demanding freedom from China.
Hong Kong International Airport canceled all its flights Tuesday – over 200 scheduled departures and arrivals – in response to a flood of hundreds, if not thousands, of protesters blocking passengers from gates and demanding the government listen to their demands for freedom.
Residents of Hong Kong have been nervously watching Chinese military and police movements near their borders, fearing each new report of personnel or vehicles arriving near the border city of Shenzhen could be the prelude to a Tiananmen Square-style crackdown.
China’s government news agency Xinhua referred to the peaceful, pro-democratic Hong Kong protest movement as “mobsters” that have “created an atmosphere of terror” in the city on Monday.
Hong Kong’s embattled chief executive Carrie Lam lashed out against the immense protest movement on Tuesday, accusing “hard-hearted” demonstrators of using “hate speech against the police” and trying to “push the city into the abyss of destruction.”
Tuesday during an appearance on the Hugh Hewitt’s nationally syndicated radio show, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) warned China against acting on protesters in Hong Kong with a show of force, especially with armed police and the People’s Liberation Army.
Communist Party leader Xi Jinping continues to remain silent on the nearly three-month-old Hong Kong pro-democracy movement, but the People’s Daily government newspaper reminded protesters Tuesday that, to Xi, any threat to China’s supremacy in the city is “absolutely impermissible.”
China pressured American luxury clothing brand Coach, Italian designer Versace, and French fashion house Givenchy into apologizing on Monday for selling T-shirts that depicted Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan as countries separate from Communist China.
Pro-democracy protests are a “form of warfare employed by the West to destabilize certain countries” and the peaceful Hong Kong protest movement is an American fabricated attempt to weaken China from within, the Communist Party’s People’s Daily suggested on Monday.
Hong Kong International Airport cancelled all flights Monday in response to a flood of thousands of protesters staging a sit-in at the facility, demanding justice for pro-democracy activists and bystanders subjected to violence by police and pro-China mobs throughout the city.
Hong Kong police escalated the use of violence against protesters this weekend, the tenth since protests against Communist Party influence in the city began, flooding closed-off areas with tear gas and, on one occasion, allegedly shooting a protester in the eye.
Hong Kong (AFP) — Thousands of pro-democracy protesters hit the streets of Hong Kong on Sunday for the 10th weekend in a row, once again defying police after a night of “hit-and-run” rallies across the city.
Hong Kong police officials on Friday announced that former Deputy Commissioner Alan Lau is coming out of retirement to accept a temporary position as second-in-command of the force, with a focus on controlling the enormous anti-government protests that have rocked the island. Lau, who retired late last year, was instrumental in suppressing the 2014 democracy movement, the most vigorous challenge to mainland China’s authority until now.
The U.S. State Department denounced the Chinese Communist government as a “thuggish regime” after a pro-Beijing newspaper published personal information about an American diplomat who met with Hong Kong student leaders, including the names of the diplomat’s children.
Researchers surveying the journalists covering the ongoing Hong Kong protest movement found that upwards of 90 percent of journalists covering the July 28 protest suffered health effects such as difficulty breathing and coughing blood when police fired liberal amounts of tear gas at the crowds, the Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP) reported Friday.
On the same day New Zealand summoned China’s diplomatic team to formally rebuke Beijing for encouraging violence against supporters of the Hong Kong protest movement at the University of Auckland, the Chinese Communist Global Times was praising violent pro-China students in New Zealand and Australia for using “creative methods to protect national sovereignty and dispel misrepresentation of pro-independence forces.”
China’s Communist Party office running Hong Kong organized a “symposium” for 550 sympathizers Wednesday where a top government official called the protests there “a battle of life and death” for the future of communism in the city.
China’s state-run Global Times attempted to insult the Hong Kong protest movement Wednesday by accusing activists of seeking “democracy with U.S. characteristics” and hoping the city becomes a “U.S. colony.”
The New Zealand Foreign Ministry met with Chinese officials on Monday and formally denounced China for attempting to suppress freedom of speech by encouraging violence against supporters of the Hong Kong protest movement in New Zealand last week.
The South China Morning Post on Wednesday noted a sharp escalation in Chinese information warfare against the Hong Kong protest movement as an army of trolls poured out of a forum supported by Chinese state media to push pro-Beijing memes and harass protest supporters.
An estimated 3,000 legal professionals took the streets of Hong Kong on Wednesday, demanding that the government allow the growing protest movement to express itself freely without facing unjust judicial activity or police brutality.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying accused Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Tuesday of “bolstering violent radical criminals” by offering encouragement to the peaceful anti-communist movement in Hong Kong, urging her to stop “grossly interfering” in Chinese politics.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry railed against the United States in its Monday press conference, accusing the U.S. of “conniving with violent criminals” in Hong Kong in an “arrogant” bid to undermine China’s national unity.
Chinese communist regime authorities staged a 12,000-strong police officer anti-riot drill on Tuesday in Shenzhen to prepare officers to protect “social stability,” a move immediately following a turbulent weekend of anti-communist protests just south of Shenzhen’s border in Hong Kong.
Tuesday on Hugh Hewitt’s nationally syndicated radio show, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) commented on the ongoing tensions in Hong Kong with what appears to be police threatening to crack down on protesters. Cotton said if conditions broke down and China
An angry mob carrying bamboo sticks and metal rods returned to the scene of the Hong Kong protests Monday night for the first time in weeks, openly attacking protesters in plain sight of police and journalists and, unlike their last attack, not bothering to wear masks.
A driver believed to be injured and refusing help from the crowd rammed through an improvised blockade in Yuen Long, Hong Kong, on Monday, hitting protesters standing on the other side.
Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam again refused calls for her resignation and lashed out at the immense protest movement on Monday, condemning participants as “radical elements” whose goal is to “foment revolution” against Communist China.
China’s various Communist Party propaganda arms vehemently condemned a Hong Kong protester on Monday for taking down a Chinese flag at Tsim Sha Tsui ferry pier and throwing it in the harbor, “an unforgivable, lawless act” Beijing promised will soon be punished.
As many as half a million people in Hong Kong refused to go to work on Monday, freezing mass transit in the city and grounding over 200 flights. Police used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse large crowds of protesters in neighborhoods throughout the city who demanded the Communist Party stay out.
The South China Morning Post on Friday offered some evidence that Beijing’s worst fears may be coming true as mainland Chinese citizens posted support for the Hong Kong protest movement on social media.
China’s Global Times, a government-run newspaper, praised U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday for refusing to give “advice” to China on handling ongoing pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, contradicting repeated accusations from the Chinese Foreign Ministry against Trump for organizing the protests in the first place.
The Chinese military released a video on Thursday warning of “consequences” for the people of Hong Kong if they continue to protest against Beijing’s encroachment on their freedoms.
