‘Red Roulette’ Uncovers Covert Hands in Hong Kong

China has long accused foreign elements of being behind the protests that convulsed Hong Kong in 2019. Authorities returned to the theme in recent days, with the foreign ministry releasing a 6,300-word “fact sheet” of U.S. interference in the territory. Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam called the facts “indisputable,” and Financial Secretary Paul Chan weighed in with his own report detailing the role played by “puppets and foreign proxies” in damaging the city’s economy.

None of the material in either report offers proof of the so-called black hands that Beijing has frequently invoked in its denunciations of external meddling – that is, clandestine organizing forces that instigated and inflamed the unrest. The foreign ministry document is a list of actions that the U.S. took in full view of the world in response to what was happening in the city, and includes such incriminating acts as the consul general writing in a newspaper article that “human rights are universal, which is why the United States stands with Hong Kong.”