China’s central government won’t sit by and let the disruption in Hong Kong go on, according a commentary by the Xinhua News Agency, which condemned the violence that has racked the financial hub for weeks and took aim at protesters whom it said tossed a Chinese national flag into the harbor.
“We must warn all the ugly forces that try to challenge the central authority and undermine the bottom line of the ‘one country, two systems’ principle,” the news agency said Sunday. It added: “The central government will not sit idly by and let this situation continue,” while reiterating that it is sticking to the “one country, two systems” regime. Under the terms of the 1997 handover deal with Britain, Hong Kong has rights and liberties unseen on the Chinese mainland, including an independent judiciary and freedom of speech.
