China backs bolder action to counter roots of Hong Kong unrest: official
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Beijing supports bolder action to tackle the roots of unrest that has rocked Hong Kong for months, a senior Chinese official said on Wednesday, just hours after a knife-wielding man attacked a pro-Beijing lawmaker in the Chinese-ruled city.
Han Zheng, a vice premier, said at a meeting with Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam in Beijing the anti-government protests were damaging the “one country, two systems” formula under which the former British colony has been governed since its handover to China in 1997.
“We firmly support the special administrative region government to adopt more proactive and more effective measures to solve the social problems,” said Han, speaking at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in the Chinese capital.
Han said the social problems included unaffordable housing in the city, which is classified as a “special administrative region” of China.
Lam announced housing and land reforms last month in an effort to regain support in one of the world’s most expensive housing markets. She also defended her administration’s response to the protests, which have included reviving colonial-era emergency laws.
What started as agitation against a now-scrapped extradition bill, which would have allowed people to be sent to mainland China for trial, has widened into calls for full democracy and an end to perceived Chinese meddling.
Beijing denies interfering and blames foreign governments for fuelling the unrest.
Five months of often violent unrest have plunged Hong Kong into its biggest political crisis in decades and pose one of the gravest challenges to Chinese President Xi Jinping since he came to power in 2012.
China’s Communist Party said on Tuesday it would not tolerate any “separatist behaviour” after some protesters called for independence. Han said the violence had exceeded the “bottom line” of the rule of law and of morality.