Hong Kong 47: Beijing slams West over ‘hypocritical double standards’

Beijing has sharply rebuked the West over its condemnation of the jailing of former Hong Kong legal academic Benny Tai Yiu-ting and other opposition activists for subversion, slamming foreign powers for applying “hypocritical double standards” and painting the criminals as advocates for democracy.

The State Council’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office (HKMAO) said in a commentary on Saturday that Tai and others were “far from being genuine advocates” for democracy. Rather they were its “true destructors” as they had promoted a plan that would have betrayed the country and harmed the interests of Hongkongers, it said.

Amid calls for sanctions by some Western politicians, the office also assured Hong Kong judges that Beijing would “fully protect their legitimate rights”.

In a rare move, the top-level agency overseeing Hong Kong affairs posted the commentary under the pen name “Gang Ao Ping” on its official WeChat account in both Chinese and English.

It rejected criticisms of the West as a “smear campaign” built on “falsehoods, double standards, and ill intention”.

Tai and the others found guilty were pawns for “external forces in instigating a colour revolution in Hong Kong” by promoting “ideological cancer” that fuelled the 2019 anti-government protests, the office said.