The Asian Age

Two Chinese social media sites delete Modi speech Security bureau in HK, says China

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Beijing, June 20: Indian embassy officials here have said the speech of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to chief ministers on June 18 as well as the comments by the spokespers­on of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have been deleted from two Chinese social media accounts, including Weibo.

The move comes in the backdrop of the violent face-off between the Indian and Chinese armies in the Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh on Monday in which 20 Indian military personnel were killed, significan­tly escalating the already volatile situation in the region.

Indian Embassy officials said the transcript of the remarks of the MEA spokesman Anurag Srivastava were found to have been removed from the Embassy’s account of Sina Weibo on June 18. After that the Indian officials re-published the screen shots of Srivastava’s comments on June 19.

Sina Weibo which is similar to Twitter in China has millions of users and all embassies in Beijing besides several world leaders including Prime Minister Modi have opened their accounts to interact with the Chinese people.

Beijing, June 20: China plans to establish a special bureau in Hong Kong to investigat­e and prosecute crimes considered threatenin­g to national security, as state media on Saturday reported some details of a controvers­ial new national security law being imposed on the city.

Bodies in all Hong Kong government department­s, from finance to immigratio­n, will be directly answerable to the central government in Beijing, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Details of the proposed national security law — which has been strongly criticised as underminin­g the semi-autonomous territory’s legal and political institutio­ns — emerged as

The MEA spokespers­on's remarks have also been removed from the official WeChat account.

A note on WeChat says, “unable to view this content because it violates regulation­s”. In his comments, Srivastava had asked China the body that handles most lawmaking for China’s top legislativ­e body closed its latest meeting.

The bill was raised for discussion at the meeting of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress but there was no further word on its fate, Xinhua said. Tam Yiuchung, Hong Kong’s sole delegate on the Standing Committee, told Hong Kong public broadcaste­r RTHK that the law was reviewed but no vote had been taken, and that it wasn’t clear when it would be further vetted.

The Standing Committee meets every two months. The bill was submitted Thursday for deliberati­on.

to confine its activities to its side of the Line of Actual Control and that it must not take any unilateral action to alter it. Prime Minister Modi’s remarks of June 18 about the Indian soldiers killed in the Galwan Valley clash has also become inaccessib­le on WeChat.

The page says that the “content has been deleted by the author”, whereas the Embassy officials said they have not removed it. Emphasisin­g that the sacrifice of Indian soldiers killed in the Galwan Valley clash in Ladakh will not go in vain, Modi said that India wants peace but is capable of giving a befitting reply, if instigated.

Both the Weibo pages of the Indian embassy and its WeChat group have thousands of followers. While the Weibo page was opened earlier, the WeChat group started in January this year.

Modi opened an account in Weibo during his visit here in 2015 and continued to make use of it to interact with the Chinese people. No posts related to the recent military confrontat­ion were posted on his page. Twenty Indian Army personnel, including a Colonel, were killed in the clashes with the Chinese troops in the Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh on Monday night. While China has acknowledg­ed casualties on their side, it has not specified the numbers. Beijing has not made any official statement on the casualties.

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