British police in Manchester were called to the Chinese Consulate over the weekend after staff started an altercation with a Radio Free Asia journalist who filmed them cleaning up Hong Kong protest graffiti on the street outside. Four members of staff surrounded RFA Cantonese Service reporter Matthew Leung on Saturday afternoon after he started taking photos of them scrubbing away slogans in white paint daubed on the sidewalk outside the Chinese consulate on Manchester’s Denison Road.
The slogans read “F--- PRC!” [People’s Republic of China] “Independence for Hong Kong!” and “Long Live the Republic of China!” the official name for democratic Taiwan, according to photos shared on the messaging app Telegram on the afternoon of Dec. 28. There was also an epithet referring to China by a highly offensive historical slur, which has been used by Hong Kongers in protest slogans before.