Hong Kong

Two top Chinese authorities on Hong Kong affairs - the liaison office of the central government in Hong Kong and Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council - denounced the latest sanctions imposed by the US on six individuals over the illegal primary elections held in the Chinese city, calling for these final-stage madness and multiple sanction farces to end. 

The sanctions were announced on Friday over the Hong Kong police arrests of 53 people including Hong Kong law professor Benny Tai Yiu-ting, anti-government lawmakers and district councilors who took part in the so-called "35-plus" political strategy last year. 

The so-called planned primary election posed a severe challenge to the constitutional order of the HKSAR, and severely damaged the election system of the city with the aim of subverting the city's government, the spokesperson of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council said on Monday.

The act was also suspected of violating the national security law for Hong Kong and other local laws. As a result, police arrested the suspects and launched an investigation in accordance with the law, the spokesperson said.  

Some anti-China US politicians like US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have been getting used to interfering in Hong Kong affairs and the internal affairs of China, and have been using these sanctions tactics from time to time, which only underscored their ill-intentioned attempts to curb China's development at any cost, the spokesperson noted. 

"It also exposed their hysteria after seeing the political agents they supported being punished by the law one after the other, and seeing that the sanctions won't shake the determination of the Chinese government and Chinese people in safeguarding the country's sovereignty and national security. All those political tricks have been fully played out and will only end in vain," the spokesperson said. 

"It's time to end this farce," the Chinese official said, referring to the final madness staged by US hawks like Pompeo. 

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying on Monday also denounced the US actions, which she said were blatant interference in China's internal affairs and judicial sovereignty, severely violating international law and the basic norms governing international relations. 

In terms of the wrongdoings of US officials and individuals, China has decided to sanction as countermeasures officials in charge of the matter from the US executive branch, the Congress, NGOs and their direct relatives, she said during a press conference on Monday. 

During the weekend, the Office of the Commissioner of the Chinese Foreign Ministry also expressed great indignation and firm opposition to the latest US sanctions, saying that any interference will be countered firmly by all Chinese people. 

The liaison office also called the latest sanctions a "political farce", and said the statement issued by the US State Department was composed of lies, bias and blatant double standards. Those 53 people who were arrested ignored warnings from the HKSAR government, especially after the national security law for Hong Kong took effect, and continued to collude in so-called primaries to paralyze the HKSAR government, violating the law and other local laws. 

The US has been constantly smearing the national security law for Hong Kong and "one country, two systems" by staging this sanctions farce, which severely violates international law and the basic norms of international relations, which will only make the world see clearly the true color of US hegemony.