‘Sliding into an abyss’: Beijing’s top office in Hong Kong urges stronger crackdown against unrest
- Agency calls for city’s administration and police to use all necessary measures to restore order
- It calls on the Hong Kong government to do everything in its power to end the turmoil and ‘arrest the criminals and severely punish their violent acts’
Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong says the city is “sliding into the abyss of terrorism” and a harsher crackdown is needed to end the unrest and restore order.
This week, a protester was shot by police, a man was set on fire, roads were blocked and university campuses turned into battlegrounds.
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As the Hong Kong government struggles to calm the public and stop the violence, Beijing has again thrown its weight behind the city’s administration and police force, urging them to take tougher action.
In a statement late on Tuesday, the central government’s liaison office said it “resolutely supports the Hong Kong government in adopting every necessary measure to end the unrest and restore order as soon as possible, arrest the criminals and severely punish their violent acts”.
It called on the Hong Kong government, police and judiciary to “decisively adopt all necessary means to forcefully crack down on various acts of violence and terrorism”.
It is not the first time Beijing has evoked “terrorism” to describe the anti-government protests in Hong Kong.
In August, after a weekend of clashes between police and protesters, Beijing’s top office on Hong Kong policy, the State Council’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office (HKMAO), warned that protesters were showing “signs of terrorism” by “repeatedly attacking police with highly dangerous tools” such as petrol bombs.
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The liaison office also warned at the time that “if these terrorist atrocities were allowed to spread, Hong Kong would slide into a bottomless abyss”.
Two days later, the HKMAO strongly condemned attacks against a mainland reporter at Hong Kong’s airport, calling them “near-terrorist acts”.
Tian Feilong, a specialist on Hong Kong affairs at Beihang University in Beijing, said the central government was sending a message to the Hong Kong government and public.
“From ‘signs of terrorism’ to ‘sliding into the abyss of terrorism’, it means it is now only one step away from real terrorism,” Tian said.
“If the government and citizens cannot work together to end the unrest, Hong Kong’s ability to govern itself will be questioned, and the central government will consider interfering in its own way.”
On Tuesday night, the HKMAO issued a statement calling on Hong Kong authorities to launch a harsher crackdown to end the turmoil.
“We resolutely support the Hong Kong SAR government, police force and judiciary to adopt more forceful, bolder and more effective actions to severely punish illegal and criminal acts, to stop unrest and restore order,” it said.
The urgency was reflected in a commentary by state news agency Xinhua on Wednesday.
“Time waits for no one, and Hong Kong is at the most critical juncture,” it said.
“If this kind of abnormality is allowed to continue, there will be no time left for society to correct itself.”
Meanwhile, People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of China’s ruling Communist Party, accused pan-democrats in the city of “using the sacrifice of young people to cheat sympathy out of citizens and curry support from foreign powers”. It said their goal was to “snatch the fruits of victory from the district council election, legislative election and the chief executive election committee election”.
