Mainland China suspended its visa program for tourist visits to Taiwan on Thursday, ostensibly because relations across the Taiwan Strait have deteriorated. Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen denounced the move as an effort to apply economic pressure against the island ahead of its presidential election in January.
The commander of China’s armed forces in Hong Kong declared protests in the city “absolutely intolerable” on Wednesday, alleging the protesters are violent and vowing the military will “resolutely safeguard” China’s interests in the city.
Hong Kong authorities charged 44 protesters with rioting on Wednesday. The protesters were present at an “illegal” rally against the mob violence pro-democracy activists experienced this month at the hands of triad-linked assailants in the rural Yuen Long area after a protest.
A pro-Hong Kong rally at the University of Queensland in Australia last week turned ugly after a violent group of pro-Beijing students crashed the event and attacked the pro-democracy demonstrators.
Chinese media is working overtime to paint the Hong Kong protest movement as a gang of violent radicals driven mad by Western propaganda. The latest round of editorial broadsides was fired over charges brought against four protesters for carrying “offensive weapons” to Saturday’s protest at the Yuen Long train station.
Pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong stood between the doors of Mass Transit Rail (MTR) trains in the city on Tuesday morning, preventing them from moving and keeping locals from getting to work during peak transit hours.
The Chinese government on Monday restated its support for Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam, insisted Hong Kong police acted appropriately to control violent protests, and suggested the massive protest movement is filled with unwitting dupes who have been misled about the Chinese legal system.
The American flag has become a symbol of resistance against China in the ongoing protests in Hong Kong, prominently waved throughout the city this past weekend as police fired tear gas and rubber bullets into the peaceful crowds.
Police in Hong Kong injured nearly two dozen and arrested at least 14 throughout the weekend as anti-China protesters defied a ban on marching against the use of violence to silence dissent.
Hundreds of protesters chanting “Free Hong Kong!” filled the Hong Kong International Airport on Friday, seeking attention from international arrivals and demanding a thorough investigation of last Sunday’s mob attack on activists at a train station.
Controversial pro-Beijing Hong Kong lawmaker Junius Ho Kwan-yiu, who has supported violence against protesters, on Thursday called for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to prepare for military action to restore order in the city.
Pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong said Thursday they expect an anti-violence rally scheduled for Saturday to attract even more people after police rejected their request for a permit.
A group of demonstrators blocked a train station for about 15 minutes during rush hour on Wednesday morning to call attention to Sunday’s savage beating of activists and bystanders by a gang of thugs. The demonstrators accused Hong Kong police and railway authorities of tolerating, or even enabling, the attack.
China released a national defense white paper on Wednesday painting the United States as a menace to global stability, identifying Taiwan as the “greatest immediate threat” to Chinese national security, and raising the possibility of military action against “separatists” like the protesters in Hong Kong.
China’s Defense Ministry suggested on Wednesday that the government of Hong Kong, besieged for two months by pro-democracy protests, has the legal right to request the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) “maintain social order” by attacking the protesters.
Hong Kong police announced Tuesday they had arrested six men, some with ties to triad criminal syndicates, for involvement in a brutal mob attack on pro-democracy protesters Sunday.
Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu on Monday called for “genuine democratic elections” in Hong Kong, proclaiming democracy is the “only way forward” as the people of Hong Kong grow more alienated from their pro-Beijing government.
China’s state-run media outlets have launched a coordinated attack on the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, accusing them of extreme violence on Monday and warning that protesters “must pay the price” of demanding freedom from communism the morning after a pro-China mob sent at least 45 people to the hospital.
A mob of armed, masked pro-China assailants beat and severely injured peaceful protesters, pregnant women, and journalists in Hong Kong.
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen told reporters on Friday that her government would treat “friends from Hong Kong” humanely in response reports that dozens of pro-democracy protesters are seeking political asylum in the island nation.
Taiwan has been strongly supportive of the Hong Kong protest movement, and Hong Kongers appear to be returning the favor with surging support for Taiwanese independence.
China’s state-run Global Times newspaper accused the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong of hosting speeches full of “violence, hostility, and racism” towards Chinese people in a column Wednesday, not mentioning that the vast majority of the population of Hong Kong is Han Chinese.
Hundreds of protesters swarmed the New Town Mall in Sha Tin, a suburb of Hong Kong city, on Tuesday night demanding an explanation for police violence against peaceful protesters attempting to reach a mass transit platform to get home on Sunday.
Demonstrations continued in Hong Kong with at least three events planned for this week, including a march by elderly people determined to show that not just hotheaded young students are opposed to the controversial extradition law.
China’s Global Times government newspaper suggested on Tuesday that the Communist Party could send the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) into Hong Kong to “reinforce” brutality by the Hong Kong police following a turbulent incident in the Hong Kong suburb of Sha Tin on Sunday that resulted in 22 injuries.
The People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, called the current “One Country, Two Systems” policy imposed on Hong Kong “the best way to achieve national reunification” on Tuesday, revealing Beijing’s ultimate goal of imposing itself on both Hong Kong and Taiwan.
One of the most violent clashes yet between protesters and riot police in Hong Kong on Sunday night left two in critical condition and dozens in police custody after authorities trapped protesters attempting to go home in a shopping mall and attacked them with pepper spray.
A group of pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong continued a hunger strike that entered its eighth day on Thursday over a proposal that would allow the extradition of anyone in the city accused of crimes by communist China.
China’s state-run Global Times on Wednesday dumped a deeply patronizing editorial upon the student protesters of Hong Kong, describing them as lazy and reckless youth who desperately need the discipline and perspective of a solid education in mainland Communist schools.
The unexpectedly huge protest movement in China’s Hubei province appears to have won a victory against the city of Wuhan, which announced on Tuesday that a controversial incinerator project has been put on hold.
Maj. Gen. Chen Daoxiang, commander of People’s Liberation Army (PLA) forces in Hong Kong, reportedly promised a Pentagon official last month that Chinese troops will not be deployed against protesters, attempting to allay fears of a deadly Tiananmen Square-style crackdown on the huge and thus far successful movement.
China expert and Asia Times columnist David P. Goldman joined SiriusXM hosts Rebecca Mansour and Joel Pollak on Monday’s edition of Breitbart News Tonight to talk about the apparent victory of the protest movement in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong pop singer, actress, and political activist Denise Ho Wan-see gave a speech to the United Nations on Monday in which she accused China of violating its commitments to Hong Kong’s autonomy and asked the U.N. to remove China from its Human Rights Council. Chinese diplomats interrupted her two-minute speech twice.
Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam attempted to convince pro-democracy protesters on Tuesday to give up their cause, insisting that the extradition bill that brought millions to the streets against it “is dead” and that she is aware that the plan to roll it out was a “total failure.”
Hong Kong’s anti-Communist protesters took to a new neighborhood Sunday to urge the complete cancellation of a bill that would allow China to extradite anyone accused of violating its laws: Kowloon, a district whose shopping center attracts Chinese visitors, who the protesters hope to convince to support them.
They smashed glass windows, sprayed rude graffiti and defaced Hong Kong’s official emblem with black paint. But of all the dramatic photos showing hundreds of young protesters storming the city’s legislative building this week, one image makes for particularly uncomfortable viewing in Beijing: The British colonial flag draped aloft a podium in the assembly’s chamber.
Police in Hong Kong announced early Thursday they had arrested 12 people in connection to the wave of anti-China protesters that destroyed the Legislative Council (LegCo) headquarters on Monday, shattering its exterior and spray-painting the legislative floor with anti-China slogans.
Chinese state media are predictably glum about the Fourth of July holiday, using the occasion to whine about America’s harsh treatment of China in the trade war and pushing the line that American notions of individual freedom are incompatible with Chinese culture.
The South China Morning Post revealed on Wednesday that in June the communist government of China stationed a “task force” in Shenzhen, slightly north of Hong Kong, to monitor growing protests in the autonomous city.
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen on Tuesday urged Hong Kong officials to listen to the protest movement and deal with its concerns instead of using force to suppress the movement, a course Tsai feared would lead to more violence.
