By Yang Sheng

BEIJING - The Chinese Foreign Ministry slammed US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's comments on Hong Kong Tuesday and listed examples of the US interfering in China's internal affairs in Hong Kong over the past months.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said at a routine press conference on Tuesday that the violence and unrest in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region were the "work" of the US.

Pompeo said China should "do the right thing" in dealing with protests in Hong Kong during an interview with Bloomberg on Friday.

"We hope that they'll do that, we hope that the protests will remain peaceful," he said.

Responding to Pompeo's comments, Hua said "I don't know if he [Pompeo] wants to move the protests in Hong Kong where radically violent activists attacked the police with steel bars and deadly weapons to the US. The US then can show its 'democracy' to the world."

"I'm afraid he [Pompeo] still regards himself as the head of the CIA. He might believe that the recent violence in Hong Kong is reasonable because as you may all know, it is, after all, a 'work' of the US," she said.

Hua listed a series of examples showing US interference in China's internal affairs in Hong Kong, including one that some members of the US Congress reintroduced the so-called "Hong Kong Human Rights Democracy Act" and in July, "Pence, Pompeo and Bolton met with figures of the Hong Kong opposition camp."

On Monday, Hua also slammed the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel for issuing a statement on Friday criticizing the Hong Kong police's handling of "peaceful" anti-extradition bill protests.

"How dare some people from the US call that a 'peaceful protest' when everyone saw how the protesters smashed the Legislative Council, stormed the building of the liaison office and attacked police officers with deadly weapons?" Hua said.

Diao Daming, an associate professor at the Renmin University of China in Beijing, told the Global Times on Tuesday that US politicians and senior officials' comments on Hong Kong showed strong hostility toward China due to "great power competition" in which the US believes.

Diao also noted that some US political figures might consider interference over Hong Kong can unite its allies among the West including the UK, to jointly contain China's development by encouraging the opposition camp in Hong Kong to make trouble.

"No matter what, the US stance and its behavior won't bring anything good to the US, but will make the China-US relationship more unstable," Diao said.

The Global Times official Twitter account tweeted Saturday that "For those who accuse Hong Kong police of using force against rioters, here is a comparison between how Hong Kong police and Western countries' police respond to riots. After seeing these pictures, the Hong Kong mob should feel lucky."

The tweet posted four photos depicting US and European police dealing with protesters by force and a photo showing the Hong Kong police cornered by radical protesters.

This tweet received comments including "Westerners are so much worse" and "those guys [radical violent protesters and rioters] in Hong Kong are completely terrorists."