Foreign media 'confused' Hong Kong situation

A senior Singaporean government official said international news media outlets have presented a "confused, muddied" picture of the situation in Hong Kong with "superficial analyses", and Singapore is not benefiting from troubles in China's special administrative region.

"If you look at it internationally, outsiders looking in, I think a confused, muddied picture has been presented because international news organizations have dealt with very superficial analyses, and engaged in labeling," Minister for Law and Home Affairs K. Shanmugam told Hong Kong's South China Morning Post and Singapore's Lianhe Zaobao.

The ongoing unrest has led to reports that some wealthy businesspeople based in Hong Kong have begun moving their assets overseas, and Singapore was a beneficiary, the South China Morning Post reported.

But Shanmugam said he did not believe that Singapore was benefiting from the turmoil in Hong Kong.

"We benefit from stability across the region, including Hong Kong," he said. "If China does well, Hong Kong does well, the region does well, we do well."

Shanmugam also said that China's system selects competent, good people in the government, and that not enough credit is given to China's major achievement of lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty over the past three decades.

"No country has done that in history, in 35 years," he said. "Could that have been achieved under any of the other systems? The Chinese leaders will also ask you about the well-being of the people in China. Is there a system, a political system that can do better for the people of China, compared to the current system?"

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea also expressed its support for China over its handling of the ongoing protests in Hong Kong.

"It is our principled stand that any country, entity and individual should not be allowed to destroy the sovereignty and security of China and 'one country, two systems' as Hong Kong is Hong Kong of China," a DPRK Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Sunday, the official Korean Central News Agency reported.