The Hindu : U.S. remarks on Hong Kong irk China

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jan 07, 2004

International

International

U.S. remarks on Hong Kong irk China

By P .S. Suryanarayana

SINGAPORE JAN. 6. China has asked the United States to refrain from making any statement or indulging in any activity that would harm Hong Kong's political stability and economic prosperity.

Commenting on the reported remarks of a U.S. State Department spokesman on Hong Kong, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Kong Quan, said Beijing `hopes' that Washington "could keep its promises," made repeatedly, about its policy of non-interference in China's internal affairs.

Mr. Kong's comment is in response to the reported remarks by the U.S. spokesman that the Hong Kong Government should move towards electoral reform as also universal suffrage besides sustaining a process of democratisation.

Mr. Kong said on Sunday that Beijing hoped that Washington would refrain from any "behaviour that would harm the stability and prosperity in Hong Kong."

He recalled that the U.S. had repeatedly expressed its willingness to support the Chinese Government in implementing its policy of "one country, two systems" as regards Hong Kong.

Affirming firm opposition to any form of interference by foreign Governments in the affairs of China's Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong, he emphasised that the territory's stability and prosperity were issues entirely under the internal jurisdiction of the Central Government in Beijing.

China, Mr. Kong said, was "highly concerned with" and "seized of" the evolution of Hong Kong's political system.

Beijing's "clear stand" was that Hong Kong's political structure would "develop in a gradual and orderly manner." The two parameters governing such evolution were the Basic Law and the actual circumstances in Hong Kong.

The Basic Law outlines the equation between Beijing and Hong Kong, a former British colony that returned to Chinese sovereignty over six years ago.

It is considered significant in the Asia-Pacific diplomatic circles that the Chinese spokesman should have admonished the U.S., asking it to adopt a hands-off policy in regard to Hong Kong, even as he expressed, during the week-end, Beijing's willingness to give a push to ties with Washington by acting in concert with the American authorities.

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