She is currently on a student visa and lives with her parents, who are on business visas. “I don’t know what will happen to me if I go back to Hong Kong,” Ms. Xiao said. But Beijing and the Hong Kong government have dismissed the notion that the city’s residents might need shelter from oppression, saying the authorities guarantee the rights of its people. “There are no so-called ‘refugees being persecuted’ in Hong Kong,” the city government said in a statement. Mr. Cheung said the move would “only send a plainly wrong message to criminals.”In Canada, China’s ambassador, Cong Peiwu, warned Ottawa against accepting refugees from Hong Kong.

Source: New York Times October 24, 2020 14:15 UTC