The Chinese Consulate General in Manchester was suspected of being “splashed with paint” in a protest over the weekend. Photos circulated online showing phrases like “anti-Communist” and messages of support for Hong Kong written on the ground and walls outside the consulate. A reporter from Radio Free Asia visited the scene on Saturday afternoon and found that the area had been mostly cleaned up. However, four individuals believed to be consulate staff briefly surrounded the reporter, obstructed the camera lens, and even threatened the reporter saying, “We know where you live,” in an attempt to prevent the reporter from publishing footage. Activists pointed out that if the staff of the Chinese Consulate General in Manchester are using tactics in the UK that restrict filming and limit press freedom as they do in China, it is undoubtedly a form of “cross-border suppression.”
On Saturday, messages circulated on the messaging app Telegram, indicating that someone had used white paint on the pedestrian walkway outside the Chinese Consulate General in Manchester to write phrases like “Screw China,” “Hong Kong Independence,” “Long Live the Republic of China,” and had also written “FREE HK” on the consulate walls with white paint. They claimed to have broken the consulate’s password lock. Subsequent messages on Telegram admitted to being the ones behind the action, stating it was because “they are Communist bandits.”
Radio Free Asia reporters visited the Chinese Consulate General in Manchester on Saturday afternoon and found that the words on the ground had been completely washed away, but two Chinese men of ethnicity continued to clean the white paint on the walls. When they noticed the journalist across the street from the consulate, they demanded he stop filming. One of them then entered the consulate area.
Soon after, a Chinese man came out of the consulate, filmed the reporter at close range without identifying himself, and threatened to call the police in Cantonese. He then returned to the consulate area with three other men and stated, “Stop filming, we are calling the police now.” One of the Chinese men with glasses asked the reporter to stop filming in English.
The man demanded the reporter to identify himself. The reporter showed press credentials issued by the National Union of Journalists in the UK and identified the media organization he was from, but they still obstructed the interview.
The four men surrounded the reporter, preventing him from leaving, prompting the reporter to call the police for help. Before the authorities arrived, they continued to try to block the camera lens, with at least two of them filming the entire incident by phone. One man in an orange jacket touched the camera screen from behind at one point. “Reporter: Back off! Why did you touch me? You touched me first, OK?” He raised his hands but kept approaching the reporter until he was pulled away.
After the men signaled that the cleaning was done, they all returned to the consulate. Before leaving, they made further threatening remarks:
The four men did not identify themselves throughout the incident. However, when the police arrived, they investigated the suspected criminal damage to the consulate and took away a bag of evidence. The police briefly asked the reporter if he knew about the vandalism at the consulate, then affirmed the media’s right to freedom of the press and the ability to film in public places. They noted down the reporter’s personal information before leaving.
Former employee of the British Consulate General in Hong Kong and current director of the UK Hong Kong Overseas Community Association, Zheng Wenjie, suggested that the consulate staff obstructing the interview may be concerned that the footage would damage China’s image. He said, “On the lighter side, it can be said that the consulate staff do not understand their legal rights or boundaries; on the heavier side, if they bring the kind of media restrictions and blocking seen in China to the UK, it is absolutely part of cross-border suppression.”
In October 2022, the same consulate experienced an incident where the Consul General led a team to physically assault Hong Kong protesters, resulting in six implicated diplomats being recalled to China before further action was taken by UK authorities. Zheng Wenjie believes that Chinese personnel have learned from this incident and are now dealing with journalists in a different manner: “They raise their hands, approach journalists in a so-called ‘reducing force’ manner, then claim ‘what rights do we have,’ and then say ‘we will communicate with the UK police, we will also call the police.’ So I think there are differences in this regard, but it does not mean they are legally justified or reasonable.”
Zheng Wenjie described the act of vandalizing the consulate with white paint as an “escalation,” attributing it to the intensified crackdown by the Chinese Communist Party on Hong Kong, leading to public outrage. However, he emphasized the necessity to consider the impact of such actions on garnering international support and ensuring grievances are expressed through legitimate means.
On-site officers disclosed that the police will investigate the vandalization of the consulate as a potential hate crime. Regarding the incident where journalists were surrounded and intimidated, the Greater Manchester Police informed the media on Sunday that the consulate staff refused to cooperate with the investigation, resulting in a temporary closure of the case.