China says attempts to destabilise Hong Kong will fail

Tokyo/Beijing: China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Monday that any attempt to undermine the stability of Hong Kong was bound to fail.

Wang Yi, who is in Tokyo after attending the G20 foreign ministers' summit in the Japanese city of Nagoya, made these remarks following the declaration of the results of district council elections in the autonomous territory, Efe news reported.

"Any attempt to undermine the stability and prosperity of Hong Kong will end in failure," warned Wang after a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Kyodo news agency reported.

During his meeting with Abe to discuss Chinese President Xi Jinping's upcoming state visit to Japan, the Japanese leader stressed the "importance of allowing Hong Kong to flourish under the 'one country, two systems' principle'".

District council elections in the former British colony were held on Sunday despite ongoing demonstrations in the city since June. The polls served as a barometer to measure citizens' support for both the government and the protests.

Pro-democracy candidates won at least 388 of 452 district council seats after the voting that saw a record 71.2-percent turnout of voters.

The election results imply strong social support for groups that mobilized mass protests in Hong Kong since June while the pro-Beijing camp suffered a serious setback, being reduced to just 59 seats.

Meanwhile, China's nationalist Global Times newspaper said Monday that it had not been a landslide win for the pro-democracy candidates as, in terms of percentage of votes, the difference was 57 per cent against 41 per cent or 1.67 million versus 1.2 million.

However, the system used in these elections is based on the simple majority: the candidate with the most votes in each constituency is the one who gets the position.

In a tweet on Sunday, Global Times Editor-in-Chief Hu Xijin accused the West of "helping HK opposition in district council elections in the past week".

The newspapers citing experts said the opposition's victory shows that citizens were dissatisfied with the performance of the ruling party, but pointed out that the results "showed that there is still emotion within Hong Kong society, affecting rational thinking over the key issue of how the city should walk out of its current predicament".