China Says West Should Apply Same Standards To Violent Protests In Hong Kong As In EU

China Says West Should Apply Same Standards to Violent Protests in Hong Kong as in EU

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Monday that Western media and politicians should avoid applying double standards in relation to the ongoing protests and violence in Hong Kong and Europe, noting that the protests in Catalonia and London were the internal affairs of their respective governments

BEIJING (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 21st October, 2019) Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Monday that Western media and politicians should avoid applying double standards in relation to the ongoing protests and violence in Hong Kong and Europe, noting that the protests in Catalonia and London were the internal affairs of their respective governments.

Last week, the US House of Representatives passed the so-called Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which stipulates an annual State Department review on whether China's semi-autonomous region is "sufficiently autonomous from China." China called the move "shocking hypocrisy" and vowed countermeasures.

Hua said China had taken notice of the situations in Catalonia and London and believed that Western media and politicians applied different standards to the situations in Europe versus the ongoing protests in Hong Kong.

"There two important points to be made here. Firstly, that so-called democracy and human rights are nothing else but a cover up and hypocritical excuse for the West to interfere in Hong Kong's affairs. Secondly, the same standards should be applied to the use of violence. Double standards ... will hurt everyone," the spokeswoman said.

Hong Kong, which returned to China in 1997 and enjoys a special administrative status, has seen a wave of demonstrations against the now-withdrawn extradition bill. The protests have since evolved into violent anti-China and anti-police demonstrations.

Meanwhile, Spain's semi-autonomous Catalonia region has been engulfed in violent protests since last Monday, after the country's Supreme Court sentenced nine Catalan independence leaders to lengthy prison terms. On Sunday, Spain's acting Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said 288 police officers had been injured in the clashes.

In the United Kingdom, Extinction Rebellion activists have been staging ongoing campaigns in an effort to push governments to take action on the climate crisis. Last week, London's Metropolitan Police issued a city-wide ban on protests. Over a thousand people have been arrested in connection with climate change protests.