BEIJING — China delivered its most explicit warning to date Wednesday that it was prepared to use military force in Hong Kong if protesters there threatened the central government’s authority.
The warning was a reminder of Beijing’s ultimate control over the fate of Hong Kong, which has been convulsed by weeks of protests demanding the preservation of the former British territory’s unique political, economic, and cultural character within the Chinese Communist system.
The People’s Liberation Army has for years maintained a garrison of 6,000 soldiers in several bases around Hong Kong, but China has never before ordered them to intervene in the territory’s affairs, though several hundred did help clear trees and other debris after Typhoon Mangkhut battered the city in 2018.
Appearing at a Beijing briefing on a government document outlining China’s defense strategy, the chief spokesman for the Ministry of National Defense, Senior Colonel Wu Qian, cited the protests Sunday outside the central government’s liaison office in Hong Kong, which protesters splattered with paint and defaced with graffiti, and strongly suggested that instances of destructive behavior were straining Beijing’s patience.
He also cited the article in a law detailing relations between Hong Kong and the People’s Liberation Army allowing the military to intervene, when requested by Hong Kong’s leaders, to maintain order or assist during natural disasters.
“The behavior of some radical protesters challenges the central government’s authority, touching on the bottom line principle of ‘one country, two systems,’’’ Wu said, of China’s model for governing the territory of 7.4 million. “That absolutely cannot be tolerated.’’
The new defense strategy unveiled in the document did not mention Hong Kong, but it identified efforts to divide Chinese territory as the country’s most pressing security threat.
The defense strategy also refused to rule out the use of force against Taiwan, which China claims as its territory, in the event the self-governing island took any formal steps toward independence.
The document criticized “external forces’’ that support such independence moves, an oblique but clear reference to the United States, which has long provided support to Taiwan, including a new sale of more than 100 M1A2T Abrams tanks and other weaponry, worth $2.2 billion.
The warnings about what are, to China, core matters of sovereignty underlined growing concern about threats to the central authority of the Communist Party government under President Xi Jinping, whose pledges never to cede any territory are central to his image as the country’s most powerful leader in decades.
The document offered a detailed window into China’s rising military ambitions under the leadership of Xi. It accused the United States of undermining global stability and reflected China’s uneasy view of an increasingly uncertain world. It also acknowledged shortcomings still hampering the People’s Liberation Army, especially in the areas of artificial intelligence and what it called “informationized warfare.’’
“Greater efforts have to be invested,’’ the strategy said, noting that Chinese military spending was lower as a percentage of gross domestic product than not only the United States and Russia, but also France and Britain.
