LONDON: British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said yesterday he will summon China’s ambassador to London over the protests in Hong Kong to express his “dismay and alarm” about the refusal to grant free elections.
“I’ll be summoning the Chinese ambassador to express to the ambassador my dismay and alarm,” he said, according to a statement from his office, with a spokesman saying only that the meeting had been requested for this week.
“The Chinese authorities in Beijing seem determined to refuse to give to the people of Hong Kong what they are perfectly entitled to expect, which is free, fair, open elections based on universal suffrage, as guaranteed by the joint declaration signed by the Chinese and British governments,” he said.
“Universal suffrage means what it says on the tin. It means everybody can vote, and everybody can vote for the candidates they want. Not for candidates that have been screened and pre-selected by the authorities in Beijing,” Clegg said.
“I really do think it’s very important at this time... that we say very loud and clear that we are on their side,” he said.
Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, the junior partner in Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative-led government, said speaking to the ambassador “should help” as part of international pressure on China.
Meanwhile, finance chief George Osborne urged China to seek peace and said the former colony’s prosperity depended on freedom.
When asked what he would say to the Chinese authorities, Finance Minister Osborne, Britain’s second most powerful politician, said: “That they work to a peaceful resolution of the situation.”
Agencies
