China-US Ties Strained Over Snowden Flight from Hong Kong

Local Editor

Chinese-American ties are coming under strain over the flight of former CIA contractor Edward Snowden from Hong Kong, while Beijing's state newspaper praising him on Tuesday for "tearing off Washington's sanctimonious mask".

On this note, the White House said the decision by China to allow Snowden to leave was "a deliberate choice by the government to release a fugitive despite a valid arrest warrant, and that decision unquestionably has a negative impact on the US-China relationship."

"China does not want this to affect the overall situation, the central government has always maintained a relatively calm and restrained attitude because Sino-U.S. relations are important," said Zhao Kejing, a professor of international relations at China's elite Tsinghua University.

However, the Chinese People's Daily had said, "In a sense, the United States has gone from a 'model of human rights' to 'an eavesdropper on personal privacy', the 'manipulator' of the centralized power over the international Internet, and the mad 'invader' of other countries' networks".

"The world will remember Edward Snowden," the newspaper said. "It was his fearlessness that tore off Washington's sanctimonious mask."

"Not only did the U.S. authorities not give us an explanation and apology, it instead expressed dissatisfaction at the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region for handling things in accordance with law," wrote Wang Xinjun, a researcher at the Academy of Military Science, in the People's Daily commentary.

"The United States should not shift the real focus," Liu Feitao, the deputy chief of U.S. studies at the China Institute of International Studies, a top think-tank affiliated with China's foreign ministry said.

"This thing has nothing to do with China, except that America owes China an explanation on the cyber-attack leaks by Snowden," he added.

Source: Reuters, edited by website team