- China warns UK government not to host pro-democracy activist who fled to Hong Kong last week.
- Sunny Cheung was expected to be arrested in Hong Kong before fleeing to Britain.
- He is now in the UK where he plans to support rally for pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong.
- Activists in Hong Kong have been targeted by police as part of a new security law imposed by the former British colony by China.
- Boris Johnson’s government has offered all Hong Kong citizens the opportunity to live in Britain.
- However, the Chinese ambassador to the United Kingdom said that hosting Cheung was tantamount to supporting “anti-China” forces.
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China has warned the UK not to host a pro-democracy activist who fled Hong Kong last week to prevent arrest, and warned it would take action again if the Boris Johnson government supported “anti-China” troops .
Twenty-four-year-old Sunny Cheung fled to Britain last week after Hong Kong police raided three young activists and seven others as part of a new security law imposed by Beijing by The Times of London.
Cheung, a former employee of the British Consulate in the semi-autonomous region, and a leading student activist fled to the United Kingdom to gather support for the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement in the United Kingdom. He was expected to appear in court before his role in a June vigil for victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre while he remained in Hong Kong. Cheung joined Nathan Law Kwun-Chung, another student activist who fled Hong Kong to the United Kingdom last month.
China’s ambassador to the United Kingdom Liu Xiaoming has warned the UK government against hosting Cheung. He said doing so was tantamount to supporting “anti-China troops” and would seriously damage “London’s already strained relationship” with Beijing “, in comments reported by The Times of London.
In an interview with the Chinese state newspaper The Global Times, Xiaoming said Cheung sought to promote “Hong Kong independence” and undermine the “one country, two systems.”
The Global Times states that the British government of Prime Minister Johnson “would be a serious breach of the basic standards governing international relations” if it offered refuge to Cheung.
HONG KONG, CHINA – 2020/07/12: Sunny Cheung seen with his supporters talking outside a temporary polling station during an unofficial primary election held by pro-democracy parties.
Chan Long Hei / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images
The series on Cheung is the latest episode in a dispute between the United Kingdom and China that began when President Xi Jingping’s government passed its new national security law on Hong Kong. The US and European Union have opposed the move, which appears to be designed to curb anti-government protests in Hong Kong.
The new law, which has seen hundreds of protesters arrested in Hong Kong, called on Johnson’s UK government to offer all Hong Kong citizens – some three million people – the opportunity to live and work in Britain via five years limited leave, which could then lead to full UK citizenship.
Prime Minister Johnson said the law violated the Sino-British Joint Declaration signed by the United Kingdom and China in 1984 by effectively ending the “one country, two systems” agreement under which China promised Hong Kong more freedoms as the mainland for 50 years after returning to Chinese control in 1997.
The UK government has estimated that since February there have been around 350,000 holders of British national (overseas) passports in Hong Kong, and 2.9 million people who could claim one.
Xiaoming last month warned the United Kingdom that China would take steps to stop recognizing British national (foreign) passports as valid travel documents, and effectively banned Hong Kong citizens from leaving and moving to the United Kingdom.
