The Chinese foreign ministry’s arm in Hong Kong has hit out at a European Parliament resolution calling for the city’s special trading status to be revoked and sanctions against government officials, urging the body to stop interfering in the country’s internal affairs.
The Commissioner’s Office of China’s Foreign Ministry in Hong Kong issued the rebuttal on Friday, a day after a sizeable majority of lawmakers in the parliament voted to adopt a non-binding resolution calling for the European Union to revoke Hong Kong’s special trading status.
“The European Parliament’s actions grossly interfered in Hong Kong affairs and China’s internal affairs, blatantly trampled on the spirit of the rule of law, and staged a clumsy political farce, which is completely unacceptable,” a spokesman for the office wrote on social media.
Thursday’s plenary in Strasbourg saw 473 lawmakers vote in favour of the resolution, with only 23 voting against it. There were 98 abstentions.
The resolution also asked the EU’s executive body, the European Commission, to review the status of Hong Kong’s economic and trade office in Brussels.
The move was prompted by the recent conclusion of Hong Kong’s largest national security trial, which saw judges hand down jail sentences ranging between four and 10 years to 45 opposition activists for holding a “primary” election in 2020 to attempt to take control of the Legislative Council and bring the government to a standstill by vetoing budgets.
European politicians responded to the judgments with renewed calls for “targeted sanctions” against Hong Kong’s political leaders, including Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu.
It also urged the bloc’s 27 member states to “file an International Court of Justice case against China’s decision to impose the national security law” on Hong Kong.
The spokesman for the commissioner’s office on Friday slammed the resolution as “erroneous” and described it as interfering in Hong Kong’s national security cases, smearing its national security legislation and slandering the city’s rule of law and human rights conditions.
He said the resolution was inconsistent with Hong Kong’s current situation, as the implementation of the national security legislation aligned with the spirit of the rule of law and international common practice that enabled the city to end the turmoil and drive economic development.
“We warn those unscrupulous politicians in the European Parliament to immediately abandon their ideological prejudices, stop their wasted political manipulation, and stop interfering in Hong Kong affairs and China’s internal affairs in any form,” he said.
The Hong Kong government earlier rejected the European body’s actions as “groundless attacks, malicious slanders and smears” against the city.
Local authorities said the city’s two national security laws were compatible and complementary, jointly establishing a comprehensive and effective legal system for safeguarding national security.
The city government also stressed all cases involving offences that endangered national security would be handled in a fair and timely manner.
It added that many common law jurisdictions, including the United States, Britain and Canada, had enacted multiple pieces of legislation to safeguard national security, calling for an end to “any untruthful reporting on and malicious smearing of the relevant judgment”.
“We strongly condemn any suggestion of imposing unilateral sanctions on any officials of the [Hong Kong] government based on groundless accusations with no factual basis,” a spokesman said. “The officials will not be threatened by such barbaric and despicable acts.”
Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law on Hong Kong in June 2020 prohibiting acts of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces in response to the anti-government protests that rocked the city for months in 2019.
Hong Kong also enacted its own Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, mandated under Article 23 of the Basic Law, the city’s mini-constitution, in March.
Former media boss Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, 77, is being tried on three conspiracy charges relating to sedition and collusion with foreign forces under the 2020 national security law.