Joshua Wong 黃之鋒  😷Verified account

1/ The Chinese government has been quite critical of my speech at the Italian parliament, calling the Italian government "irresponsible". I think China's criticism is completely out of reason and shows no respect to the basic freedoms of people from other democracies.

2/ It is clear that China is its authoritarian regime and political censorship to Italy. The Beijing authority is utterly ignorant of the will of Hong Kong people and deliberately distort the demands of over millions of people.

3/ As latest polls, over 80% of the city population support democracy. Even the ex-head of legislature Jasper Tsang supports the need for political reform. The landslide victory of election is another proof. I urge Beijing to honour its promise of true and fair democracy in HK.

4/ Italy joined the belt and road project, signing a memorandum with China cause concrete risk for Italy to fall completely under chinese influence. It's a perfect example that China will use it's as the economic leverage to export its authoritarian value and censorship to Italy.

5/ Any comments that were unfavourable to China-imposed red line will fall prey to China's hegemony. That will be a dire threat to the freedom of speech of Italian people. Also, overdependence on Chinese investments in infrastructure comes with tremendous political risks.

6/ Beijing is now pushing its companies to grab markets overseas. Italian firms have to face direct competition from Chinese companies & may be easily squeezed out, not to mention China's poor record of stealing strategic technology through the practice of forced tech transfers.

7/ In fact, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines that have taken part in China's BRI are considering pulling out those large projects, due to the political concerns about the growing reliance on Chinese investments.