China’s Theory for Hong Kong Protests: Secret American Meddling
The woman, Julie Eadeh, a political counselor, has become a central figure in a growing Chinese narrative that Hong Kong’s protests are the work of traitors who are being directed by foreign, particularly American, “black hands” bent on fomenting an uprising in the former British colony.
CCTV, China’s state broadcaster, described Ms. Eadeh on Thursday as “the behind-the-scenes black hand creating chaos in Hong Kong.”
Ta Kung Pao, a Hong Kong newspaper controlled by the Communist Party, published a photograph, taken on Tuesday, of the diplomat standing in the lobby of a luxury hotel with pro-democracy student leaders under the headline “Foreign Forces Intervene, Seek to Stir ‘Color Revolution.’” It said it had received the photo from unidentified patriotic “netizens.”
The newspaper described Ms. Eadeh, a graduate in Arab studies from Georgetown University, as “a mysterious and low-profile expert on subversion.”
The “black hand” allegations aired on Thursday against Ms. Eadeh mimic almost word for word Chinese propaganda 30 years ago against the leaders of the pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square.
The accusations of foreign meddling are a sign that Beijing, already bitterly at odds with Washington over trade, has decided to add Hong Kong to its list of grievances against the United States.
The belief that the State Department is coordinating and even orchestrating the Hong Kong protests feeds into a narrative that dates back to the Cold War, when the United States and the Soviet Union each sought to subvert the other’s ideology and its proxy states with spies and subterfuge.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/08/w...lack-hand.html