NEW YORK: Former US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said on Monday anti-government protests in Hong Kong were “not an internal” Chinese matter and that the United States should offer at least moral support to the demonstrators.
“This is not an internal matter,” Mattis said in remarks likely to irritate Beijing, which has denounced the sometimes violent protests and accused the United States and Britain of fomenting unrest in the former British colony. Although the extradition bill was withdrawn last week after months of unrest, the mass protests in streets and public places across Hong Kong continue, having grown into a broader pro-democracy backlash against the Chinese government.
In his nearly two years as defence secretary, Mattis had tried to forge a relationship with the Chinese military, worried that tense relations between the two countries could boil over into conflict.Mattis resigned from Trump’s administration a day after Trump’s plans to withdraw US troops from Syria became public. His resignation letter was widely seen as a sharp critique of Trump’s approach to national security, including what Mattis saw as a failure to value American allies around the world.
Trump said he cancelled the talks after the insurgent group claimed responsibility for an attack in Kabul that killed an American soldier and 11 other people.
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