Singapore FM sees anti-China bias in Western media reports

SINGAPORE - There has been lots of anti-China bias in Western media reports on the Occupy Central movement in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Singapore's Foreign Minister K Shanmugam has said.

Speaking in an interview published on Singapore-based Chinese daily Lianhe Zaobao on Saturday, Shanmugam said that reports in the Western media often claim that China is denying democracy and impacting on the freedoms that helped Hong Kong become successful.

But the truth is that Hong Kong did not have a democratic system for 150 years under the British rule. At that time, both the British and the Western media did not think democracy was necessary for Hong Kong, he was quoted as saying.

The proposal of China is more than what Hong Kong "ever had under the British," and the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration does not mention universal suffrage, he added.

The Occupy Central protesters have recently paralysed the operations of some of the city's essential services and operations, including part of the emergency services, by occupying the artery roads in downtown districts. They demand universal suffrage without any preconditions while a proposal outlined by the National People's Congress, the legislative body in China, has said that the candidates who run for Hong Kong's top office should be pro-China and pro-Hong Kong.

These protestors need to understand that China has acted in accordance with the Basic Law, the Singapore foreign minister said.

Separately, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told a lecture on Friday that there will be issues from time to time in Hong Kong and that these issues have to be resolved by Hong Kong and China in a way which is in the interests of Hong Kong, and doesn't hurt the interests of China and is in accordance with the law.

It will not be helpful "if other groups get involved and use this to pressure China or to change China," Lee said.