Beijing expresses 'strong dissatisfaction' with G7 on Hong Kong

BEIJING: Beijing on Tuesday voiced "strong dissatisfaction" with a joint statement issued by the G7 leaders, who backed Hong Kong's autonomy and called for calm after months of civil unrest.

"We express our strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition to the statement made by the leaders of the G7 Summit on Hong Kong affairs," said foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang at a press briefing in Beijing.

G7 leaders meeting in France on Monday backed Hong Kong's autonomy as laid out in a 1984 agreement between Britain and China, and called for calm in the protest-hit city.

But Beijing has repeatedly accused foreign governments of interfering over Hong Kong, and Geng said Tuesday that the G7 was "meddling" and "harbouring evil intentions".

"We have repeatedly stressed that Hong Kong's affairs are purely China's internal affairs and that no foreign government, organization or individual has the right to intervene," he said.

Hong Kong has been wracked by more than two months of protests over an attempt by its Beijing-backed government to pass an extradition bill which opponents saw as a huge dent in Hong Kong's autonomy.

It has since morphed into a wider call for greater democratic freedoms.

In the G7 statement, the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States called for calm in the tense city.

"The G7 reaffirms the existence and the importance of the 1984 Sino-British agreement on Hong Kong and calls for avoiding violence," it said.

China has previously accused former colonial power Britain of interfering in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory, which the British handed over to China in 1997.