Hong Kong:
The United States on Tuesday accused Chinese state media of publishing “disinformation” about its diplomats in Hong Kong as it denied its employees invoked immunity to stay away from isolating right after positive coronavirus tests.
Washington temporarily closed its consulate on Monday to conduct deep cleaning and speak to tracing right after two workers had been infected with the virus.
The consulate — and Hong Kong wellness authorities — have stated the pair had been headed to a hospital isolation ward as necessary by the city’s anti-coronavirus guidelines.
But state media outlets and a major pro-Beijing trade union have accused the workers of invoking diplomatic immunity, which US officials flat out rejected.
“The disinformation from PRC state media about these two cases not complying with quarantine is false,” a State Department spokesperson told AFP.
“We reject these efforts to spread disinformation about a critical public health issue.”
The reports of diplomatic immunity 1st ran on Monday in Dot Dot News, an on the internet news outlet in Hong Kong.
It is component of an opaquely owned media group that answers to Beijing’s Liaison Office.
Following the reports, China’s state-run Global Times tabloid repeated the diplomatic immunity accusation and accused US officials of “arrogant outlaw behaviour”.
On Tuesday morning Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing leader stated the two infected consulate workers had been currently in hospital and that US officials had been complying with regulations.
“I’m happy to notice that the US consulate also issued a press release yesterday saying that they will follow our advice and support our work,” chief executive Carrie Lam told reporters.
Nonetheless Hong Kong’s biggest pro-Beijing labour group — the Federation of Trade Unions — went ahead with a little protest outdoors the US consulate shortly right after Lam completed speaking.
Four members of the union held up banners with slogans that incorporated “No privilege, no exceptions” and “Strong condemnation of virus-spreading behaviour in spite of social morality”.
Public gatherings of more than 4 persons are at the moment banned in Hong Kong since of the coronavirus.
Hong Kong has kept infections low thanks to some of the strictest quarantine measures in the globe, recording some 11,000 infections and 200 deaths considering that the pandemic started.
Relations involving the US and China have plunged in current years, partly since of Beijing’s crackdown against dissent in Hong Kong following large and generally violent pro-democracy protests in 2019.
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